


The Limits of Control: a BDSM love story

by Mthaytr



Series: Limits Of Control: the BDSM Love Stories [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: BDSM, D/s, Kink, M/M, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:50:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 76,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mthaytr/pseuds/Mthaytr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because you want something doesn't mean it's easy to let yourself have it.  Relationships are hard enough even when they're totally normal - but Roy and Ed seem determined to make theirs as not-normal as it can get.</p><p>BDSM porn with a plot.  Or plot with overwhelming amounts of porn.  Pick one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ties that Bind](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/15801) by Cryogenia. 



> This is an (entirely unauthorized, and much longer) sequel to the wonderful oneshot called "Ties that Bind," by Cryogenia. You should read it before you read this. It won't stop you from understanding my fic entirely if you don't, but you'll be missing out on some hot, hot, kinky sex.
> 
> This fic is 66,000 words and counting, but it's almost done! So thank god for that.
> 
> Be fairly warned: like its inspiration, this fic will have a plethora of kinks, including but not limited to: dominance/submission, bondage, sadomasochism (otherwise known as BDSM), minor erotic asphyxiation, exhibitionism, whipping, automail removal, and major social ineptitude. If what I just said turns you on, then go forth! If it squicks you, better quit while you're ahead.

Chapter 1

*

Edward Elric had been in many difficult situations before, even what some might refer to as “dire straits.” He could list a hundred stupid ways he had gotten himself into trouble just off the top of his head, and he'd always managed to escape more or less intact. Frequently closer to “less” than “more,” maybe, but the other guys rarely got off so well. He'd fought mad alchemists and chimeras, serial killers and soulless monsters of both the human and nonhuman kinds. He had punched things in the face that didn't even have faces to speak of.

_These_ punks were gonna be a fucking piece of cake.

Edward stood in a back alleyway, hands shoved into the pockets of his old red jacket, examining the group of thugs who had slunk out of their little holes to stand menacingly in front of him. The alchemist heard a dull chuckle from one of the men and looked over to see him tapping what looked like a metal pipe on his shoulder in what was probably meant to be a threatening gesture. Presumably, they had thought that the short kid with the long girly hair wandering all alone through the worst parts of Central in the small hours of the morning was going to be easy prey. 

Edward wasn't any kind of prey, he was the fucking predator. The bastards came at him like fish to a lure. This was too goddamn easy.

Ed grinned and cracked his knuckles, looking his assailants over in the pale light from the lamp on the nearby street. One of the men was tall and broad at the shoulders, heavily muscled, probably slow; another, tall and gangly-thin, stood with his hands shoved in his pockets ( _he could have anything in there_ ); another one had a crowbar or something, and another few had glinting knives. That was it, at least for the ones Ed could see, though they probably had a dozen more hidden in their coats. All in all, he counted eleven men, and sixteen visible weapons.

“What's a couple punks like you doing out so late in this part of the city? It's dangerous. You could get hurt,” Edward said with a sharp grin, widening his stance and crouching slightly as his hands moved into a guarding position. It would be embarrassing to even have to use alchemy on these guys.

“You's gonna regret talking to us like that, you little shit,” the big one said, squaring his massive shoulders and taking a step forward. “But maybe, if you get down on your knees and say you're _real_ sorry, we'll let you off easy by just breaking every bone in your body instead of killing you, seein' as you're, what, fourteen?”

Edward saw red.

“I'm fucking _eighteen_ you son of a bitch and I'm _not_ short and you'll see just how _young_ I am when I shove my foot up your ass!” he shrieked, jumping forward and seizing the front of the huge man's shirt. In less than a second, the man was on the ground, on his back, with an expression of utter shock – or at least, Edward imagined the asshole would have looked that way if his face hadn't been all squished and bloody and mostly covered by Ed's boot.

“How d'you like that, huh?” he asked, grinning knives as he increased the pressure. “How's it feel to get your ass kicked by a fucking kid?”

Ed calmed in an instant as he felt more than saw movement on the edges of his vision: he sprang away just in time to see a knife pass through where he had been half a second earlier.

“Oh, you want some of this too?” Ed turned and gave an expert roundhouse kick to the second thug's head with his automail leg: the man fell over onto his buddy, probably out for the count.

“You cunt, you're gonna pay!” one of the other ones yelled, and all the rest of them ran forward together, having apparently decided that the attacking-one-at-a-time thing wasn't working for them. Ed felt the adrenaline start to kick in properly and grinned knives, high on the feel of it.

“Do you guys get together and decide what lines you're gonna use by a fucking committee?” he asked with a laugh, then delivered a metal punch to the offender's nose, letting loose a spray of red. Goddammit, the blood was gonna dry on his hand. That shit gummed up all his joints. “Day in, day out I hear guys like you spout the same bullshit. Would it kill you to make up some new ones every so often? You ever think about anybody but yourselves?” He delivered an expert chop to the neck of the tall thin one and watched him crumple to the ground. “It just gets fucking boring!”

Ed weaved in and out of the flurry of blows – knives, fists with brass knuckles, metal pipes sang through the air around him, making no contact with anything but, occasionally, each other. A well-placed punch here, a kick to the balls there – the bodies started to pile up as unconscious and injured men fell on top of their friends and stayed down.

“You dumb shit, you think you're so smart,” one shouted from behind him, and Ed spun around just in time to see a face contorted in stupid fury before he felt a sharp pain in his side. He sprang away as quickly as his legs would let him, but apparently he didn’t move quite fast enough because when he put a hand to the spot it came away red. One knee hit the ground with a metallic clang, but he thankfully managed to stay more or less upright as he allowed himself this one moment of pain.

“Fuck,” he spat out, because cursing actually did help with pain, it had been proved by science. He let his hand fall away from the gash and shook the blood off his fingers – the droplets splattered onto the ground and glinted a deep purple-black in the faint light – then got back into his proper fighting stance. His assailant rushed forward again, raging, and Ed stared the man hard in the eyes, reveling in the way his heart thundered in his ears as adrenaline surged through him. 

When the thug's careening path took him straight towards Edward – the blonde bobbed to the side, out of the way of the blade, and laid a wild blow on the man's jaw. The crunch of bone under his human hand gave him a twinge of satisfaction, though ameliorated by a bit of guilt brought on by the man's sudden, tortured scream. His broken mouth hung open uselessly around the noise, and he fell to his knees, hands scrabbling at his swinging jaw.

Maybe a _little_ bit of guilt. Mostly pride, though.

“And that's what you get for going and sticking a knife in me,” Ed declared, delivering a final booted stomp to the hand of a defeated attacker who had seemed to be temporarily under the impression he was still capable of aiming a gun. The weapon clattered to the ground and Ed kicked it away hard enough that it hit a wall. The broken-jawed man fell onto his side and just kept screaming until the blonde was sure his ears were going to start bleeding.

“Pheh. Drama queen,” he said, watching the writhing man with some disdain.

The guy didn't respond, which, all things considered, wasn't surprising.

Ed turned again – slower this time, 'cause his side hurt like a bitch – to survey his handiwork. The men's bodies lay mostly still on the filthy concrete, the occasional groan or halfhearted twitch of an arm the only things betraying life.

“Anybody else?” Ed asked the alleyway, cheerfully, because clichés were only bad things when other people used them.

*

Edward had done a pretty damn good job of patching up his side, if you asked him – at least, he wasn't bleeding all over everything anymore, which was a sign of success in his book. His undershirt made a fine set of bandages when transmuted. Even the best wrap job couldn't hold up without stitches, though: by the time he made it to his front door, the dark red had seeped through the cloth and his shirt, and had begun to drip down his leg, too.

The journey home had taken him slightly longer than he had planned, what with the injury and all. He hoped that Al wasn't still awake because at – he checked his watch and sighed – three in the morning there weren't many excuses his younger brother wouldn't see straight through. Ed couldn't see any lights through the windows, though, which was a good sign. Maybe he could sneak upstairs to the bathroom without getting caught.

He breathed in the chilly winter air one last time and blew it out in a plume of steam, focusing on enjoying the last traces of the giddy post-battle feeling as it slipped away. The endorphins had lasted for a good hour, this time, and he told himself fiercely that it had been enough.

Ed stepped up to the porch and unlocked the door – with a key this time, as Al seemed to practically be able to sense it when he opened the door with alchemy. The younger man always wanted to know what was the point of having a _lock_ if he just _transmuted_ it open all the time. Ed said that that was exactly _his_ point, but Al didn't seem impressed – he would just look at his older brother with those big eyes and that frown until Ed grudgingly agreed to use the key, a settlement which would last for all of a week.

Coming back from his night sojourns, though, he figured it was a better idea not to risk attracting his brother's wrath or his selectively magical hearing.

He swung the door shut as carefully as he could, wincing at the whine of the hinges, and padded into the living room.

The light flickered on without warning, and Ed crossed his arms on instinct to make sure his coat didn't fly open and reveal his bandages. Al stood up from where he had been sitting at the foot of the staircase and fixed those same big eyes, and crossed his arms to match Ed.

“Brother,” Al said, every syllable deliberate and planned. “Where have you been?”

Ed almost flinched. Alphonse Elric terrified him a hundred times more than any street thug.

“I – uh – Al! I didn't think you'd still be awake.”

“Yes, well, I am,” the boy said, shifting his weight to the other foot. Sometimes he looked so much younger than seventeen. “And you didn't answer my question.”

“I haven't been anywhere! I mean, nowhere in particular. Just out on a walk, that's all. Couldn't sleep,” Ed replied, as cheerfully as he could manage.

Al raised an eyebrow, and the elder brother realized what a pathetic excuse that was. They both knew that if you laid Ed down on any relatively flat surface he could be asleep in under a minute. Al had timed him on it once, and teased him mercilessly about it for a month. A nighttime walk due to insomnia was stretching the limits of possibility.

“I don't believe you,” Al said. Ed felt himself deflate a little at the other's almost tangible disappointment. “If you were just out on a walk, you wouldn't be limping now.”

Ed frowned. He hadn't been limping, had he? Moving gingerly, sure, but Alphonse shouldn't have been able to notice.

“Stubbed my toe,” Edward mumbled, hunching as he shoved his hands back in his pockets again. “It's nothing.”

“That doesn't make any sense! You're putting more weight on your flesh leg when you walk,” Al pointed out, frowning. “You can’t stub your automail toe. Winry made it better than that. Besides, I've got lots of other reasons not to believe you. You've got blood on your shoe, for one.”

Ed looked down and, sure enough, a fair quantity of blood seemed to have congealed on the toe of his leather boot. Probably from that first man, the one whose crunchy nose he had stepped on. He made a face and scuffed the toe of his boot on the carpet. He immediately regretted it because he left a rusty smear behind. Alphonse's frown deepened.

“That's somebody else's blood,” Ed said before the other could make a comment about the carpet, “and besides, how the hell did you see that from all the way over there! You're like, fifteen feet away!” Sometimes, Edward hated his brother. This evening, the feeling seemed mutual. Al's eyes blazed at him from across the room, and Ed slumped down further.

“More like ten, and I have good vision anyway. Good enough to see that you've also got blood on your gloves – or I did, anyway, before you hid your hands in your pockets. So either you were punching people, getting punched, or probably both.”

Ed sighed and pulled a hand out of his pocket to scratch his head. He hadn't been wearing gloves when he got the wound or bandaged it up, but he had probably touched his side without thinking sometime on the walk back. Such a stupid mistake to make, he should have known better.

“Okay, fine. So I was doing a little pest control. I just needed to get out of the house for a bit,” he said, shuffling forward towards the stairs. He tried to make the admission sound as level as possible,

“Brother! That's why you take up _hobbies._ Make friends. Get a job. That sort of thing,” Al replied with a disbelieving shake of his head. “And what do you mean by 'pest control'? I doubt it's anything good.”

“Okay, well, I have a hobby. It's cleaning up the streets. There are a bunch of thugs out there now who'll think twice about going back to thugging. You could even call it community service,” Ed said, flashing his brother a grin. “Look, I'm fine, all's well, can I just go to bed now?”

“No! Take off your jacket.”

Ed started and furrowed his brow. Kid was too damn clever.

“Why should I?”

“ _Edward,_ ” Alphonse said, giving his brother a dark look. Ed took off his coat meekly. You didn't argue with Al when he looked like that. “Thank you.”

The bandages were obvious enough under Ed's white button-up shirt, as the garment had been torn up pretty badly by the knife and bled on copiously besides. Edward looked down and away so he didn't have to see the worried furrow of his brother's brow as he saw the red-brown stain. The younger took the few steps forward, crossing the distance between them, then bent down to examine the wound. He ran his fingers over it, briefly – the elder hissed in a pained breath. Al jerked his hand back at the noise, his eyes flickering up to Ed's face, then back down again. His fingers had come away from his brother’s side red and wet.

“You're hurt,” Al said, the anger in his voice mixing with worry. The younger man straightened up and put his hands on his hips.

“It's not bad. You should see the other guys,” Ed replied, giving his brother another patented Elric grin. Alphonse's whole look darkened. “Really! I can't even feel it. I was just gonna go upstairs and get it cleaned up really quickly, then go to sleep.”

Al's eyes flashed, and Ed couldn't help the slow creep of guilt.

“With _what?_ ” Al asked, hands flying about in emphatic gestures as he spoke. “Brother, we don't keep bandages or antiseptic –”

“Was gonna transmute rubbing alcohol.”

“– and you don't know how to give yourself stitches and you need stitches and that's not the _point,_ anyway!” Al snapped, as if he could have just exploded. Ed winced: the younger man looked like he was in even more pain from the cut than Ed himself was. Alphonse jabbed a finger at his older brother accusingly, like a weapon. “The point is, why are you sneaking out at night by yourself and getting hurt? You say it's about helping people, but if that's true, then why didn't you take me with you? I could have been there. I could have fought too!”

Ed frowned. His little brother was probably the most competent person that he knew – he would trust the younger man to the ends of the earth and back, but, there were still some risks he didn't want to take. “Don't forget, you're squishy now,” the blonde said, trying to be gentle. “I don't want your new body getting hurt after all the pain we went through trying to get it back. I'm just trying to look out for you.”

That was at least half of it, he told himself.

“You're squishy too!” Al snapped back. Standing there with his hands on his hips and his shining eyes, he reminded Edward very much of their mother. “I don't think this is about helping people. I think this has to do with that... _stuff_ you were doing a couple of weeks ago. These sudden masochistic impulses are putting you in serious danger. I thought that Major General Mustang had helped you with those! I thought you were better! ”

Edward felt the heat rising to his face. He did _not_ want to think about how the General had “helped” him, not in front of his little brother. In fact, he wasn't going to think about it at all – he hadn't been thinking about it, because that was not what this was about. He wasn't going and seeking out pain like he had been last time: this time, the pain was just an unfortunate side effect. An unfortunate side effect that made him feel alive.

“What? No! The General has nothing to do with anything,” Ed exclaimed, backing up a little. “We're not going to have this conversation.”

“I think that it does, and we should.”

“Well, you're wrong. I've just been feeling a little cooped up.” He looked around their house: their wonderful house, with heavy leatherbound books on the mantelpiece and skulls adorning the juncture between the ceiling and the wall, the bookcases stuffed with academic texts and framed photographs, the used mugs collecting on the coffee table. This was what it was about. “It's just, I'm not used to this kind of – domestic life, you know?” And that was true, no matter how you looked at it. “It's weird. We've spent so much of our lives on the road, fighting for our lives... and now, all of a sudden, coffee tables? What the fuck am I supposed to do with myself?”

There was a waiting silence, and after a moment, Al's face softened.

“I see.” He paused, thinking. “I get that,” he said, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder. Ed couldn't help but smile, despite the rolling mix of nervousness and frustration that churned in his stomach. He was sure he was never going to get tired of feeling the warmth from his little brother's hand, not till the day he died. “I think that living like this is just as weird for me as it is for you,” Al said, the line of his mouth curving up a little.

Ed snorted. He seriously doubted that. After all, Alphonse wasn't the one with the problem.

“Basically,” the younger said, gently, “what I'm saying is that I think we should _both_ get out of the house. I'm getting a bit of cabin fever myself. I can still beat you in a fight, you know. You don't need to keep me in here. I'm not a museum exhibit,” he added with a laugh.

A pang of guilt shot through Ed then.

“I'm not trying to keep you locked up, or anything. If you were that bored, you should have told me. I'm just worried, that's all,” the elder said. To his dismay, Alphonse laughed. “What?” Ed snapped.

“ _You're_ worried about _me?_ ” Al said, looking amused, but Ed could still see the concern there, behind the smile. “Brother, I'm not the one who comes into the house at four in the morning bleeding on the upholstery.” Ed winced. Point well made. “On that topic, let's get you upstairs and cleaned up. We'll talk more about this in the morning.”

“Best idea I've heard all day,” the elder replied with a grin, and told himself that this was enough, that all of this was enough.

*

Alone, sprawled out in bed with a freshly stitched side and staring sleeplessly at the ceiling, Edward couldn't lie to himself anymore.

He'd been trying so hard to find alternatives, things that Al wouldn't have to know about and that wouldn't involve him asking goddamn Mustang for help. 

He hated how much he _wanted_ to ask, because when he thought of what had happened the last time, the way he had embarrassed himself by wanting it, so much, by wanting the man to kick him, or to kiss him – 

And Mustang had liked it too, that had been the worst part, or the best. He’d felt the man getting erect, felt that hardness behind him as the general had held him down, had murmured sinful thoughts into his ear.

Ed’s cock began to stiffen at the thought, body responding to the memory completely against his will. He flushed in shame and draped an arm over his eyes, almost as if nobody could see him if he couldn't see them. How badly fucked up did somebody have to be to want to get tied up and beaten like that? He should have been disgusted by it, by Mustang, by everything about what they had done. 

There was a perfectly good explanation, though. He was addicted to the endorphin kick. That was all. 

But even if he was just looking for a thrill, fighting these ordinary guys just wasn’t going to cut it. They hadn’t even been a challenge, and only getting a gash in his side even got his heart rate up. There had been a rush of adrenaline after the pain, but the thrill of punching faces still couldn’t compare to the thrill that accompanied the sting of his hand on Ed’s body, his voice, his lessons in obedience, the feeling when he finally came on Mustang’s lap with stars behind his eyes. 

Every time he sneaked out at night, every time he went looking for trouble he hoped it would be different, that this time maybe, finally, it would be enough. Maybe this time, he would be satisfied.

It hadn't been enough, and Edward was beginning to have the feeling that nothing else would ever be.

Damn Mustang, and everything he did. Damn Mustang and his knowing smirk and his power complex and damn him damn him _damn_ him because, even through Ed's embarrassment and anger and righteous indignation, he still remembered, and wanted. He wanted to get tied up and beaten, to be utterly helpless in front of that immovable presence, to hear words of punishment or praise, to let go of himself, just for a little bit.

His erection became insistent, utterly refusing to be ignored.

But Edward was not going to give in to that part of himself. He was _not_ going to call up the General and beg him for his help, admit that final, shaming, fucked-up weakness in a way he couldn't take back. Knowing Mustang, he had probably already come up with a hundred ways to use their little escapade as blackmail in case of an emergency. The man didn't need any more little bits of knowledge to hang over Edward’s head than he already had. Ed was strong, he was tough, he was eminently not vulnerable, and he was going to just deal.

His flesh hand drifted downwards, towards the straining tent in his pants. He would jack off perfunctorily to take care of the problem, then go to sleep, and he would wake up and manage another day without calling Roy fucking Mustang.

An involuntary groan left him as his hand came into contact with the hardness between his legs, hot even through the thin cloth of his boxers. Through sheer force of will he kept his mind empty of everything but sensation: he began to rub it in small circles, a light but constant pressure. His hand moved downwards, squeezed gently at his balls, then back up again to pull his cock out through the fly of his boxers, too desperate to want to bother with taking them off entirely. He wrapped his hand firmly around the base of his shaft, squeezed and stroked upward, pausing to graze his thumb over the tip before going back down again.

He sighed, focusing on the tiny tingle of pleasure that ran through his cock. It wouldn't be spectacular, but he'd get off, and that's all he really needed.

Edward stroked himself faster, hoping to take himself closer to the edge by speed alone, but no such luck. The frantic motion was only making him more frustrated, not helping at all. It just wasn't enough.

Thoughtlessly, almost unconsciously, he switched to his metal hand – _ohh,_ it felt so much better that way, yes, this was it, what he wanted – and squeezed down hard, hard enough to hurt. The mixed surge of pleasure and adrenaline hit him in a wave, forcing his mouth open and his breathing shallow. He pressed his eyes shut as he relaxed his grip, then squeezed again, and let out a groan.

He wasn't thinking about anything. Nothing at all.

He couldn't help but wonder, though, if since their encounter, Roy had done this very thing, thinking about Ed. He imagined the look on the other man's face, face flushed and sweat glistening on his forehead as he panted, _groaned,_ mouth working silently around Edward's name.

Ed moaned as he squeezed himself again, relishing the pain and hating himself for his weakness.

He let himself surrender to the fantasy, immersing himself in it, because maybe – yes, that was the answer, there was no harm in imagining as long as his fantasies stayed firmly in his head.

Besides, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself anyway: thinking about his name gasped out of the General's lips made him hurt with arousal, made him feel like he could just come right then, automail fisted hard around the base of his cock.

He held it in, releasing his grip with a great effort. He might have told himself that this was going to be quick, just basic relief, but he nevertheless found himself unwilling to let the feeling end so quickly. What would it be like, he wondered, what would it be like to be on his knees in front of Mustang with the man’s cock in his mouth? How would the man’s face look when he was on the edge of orgasm?

Or, another part of his mind added, what would it be like to feel Mustang’s tongue on Edward's own length? The blonde whimpered, losing even the presence of mind to feel properly ashamed of himself as he imagined that warm wetness enveloping him, imagined Roy smirking at the noises Ed would make, imagined the flat of the man's hand stinging as it hit his ass, again and again...

Ed's panting sped up as the rhythm of his clenching fist did, and when he knew he was right there, on the edge, he took his other hand down below his cock to cup what he found there. Then, finally, he let himself remember Roy's words as he had shoved a hand down Ed's pants to do the same thing:

_Remember, I'm your C.O., and that means I have you by the balls._

Edward squeezed with both hands, remembering what Mustang had done, and in one blinding second his hips were jerking forward as the pleasure burst all through his body, tearing away all ability to think. He came hard all over his sheets with a throaty cry, back arching up off the bed, Roy Mustang's smug face the last image in his mind.

Afterward, he lay still for a moment, another, then started to laugh, quiet but solid, with his own come all over his stomach, and threw his forearm back up over his eyes.

What the fuck was wrong with him? What kind of person thought about shit like that, what kind of person wanted it, still? And why fucking Mustang? The man was a conniving son of a bitch, irritating and self-important and cocky and mostly just irritating.

Ed sat up, slowly, and looked down at his mess with dismay, and a hot boil of shame.

Fucking Mustang. This was all his fault. It had to be.

*

“I thought you might want to know, sir. There have been rumors of a 'red devil' appearing in the Eastern parts of the city,” Riza Hawkeye said, laying down a stack of papers on the front of Roy's desk. He pulled them towards himself and turned them to face him, frowning. The papers had nothing to do with what she was saying. He shoved them to the side and looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

“Go on, Major Hawkeye,” he said, taking a sip from the nearly forgotten teacup at his side.

“I know it may seem strange that I brought it up, sir. It may not be relevant at all,” she said, back straight and looking precisely military, as always. “However, the stories say that a man with blonde hair in a red jacket with a black cross on the back has been attacking thugs and street gangs alone at night. The rumor goes that it's hardly safe to be a criminal anymore.”

Roy almost choked on his coffee.

“Fullmetal is doing _what?_ ” he said, once his lungs had had a moment to settle and he had set his cup back down again.

The corner of Riza's mouth quirked up.

“We don't know for sure it's Edward, sir,” she said, emphasizing Ed's given name in a gentle reminder that the man was not under his command anymore. “It could be someone who wants to look like him, for whatever reason, or a coincidence. It could be an urban legend, and there's no 'red devil' at all. Regardless, I thought you would want to know.”

Roy sighed and rubbed his temples. Sometimes he was afraid he would never be free of Edward-induced headaches. The quick massage didn't really help.

“Tell me honestly, Major. Does any part of you really think that this doesn't have 'Edward Elric' written all over it?”

Riza gave a quiet laugh, the only kind she had.

“It's probably him, sir. We don't have any proof, however.”

“Well, get investigations on that. An armed vigilante wandering the streets of Central? We can't have that, now can we?” Roy replied. “Have somebody stake out the Elrics' house. I'll have a talk with Edward myself, soon.” He paused, thinking, and tapped his pen on his desk. “You're sure it wasn't two armed vigilantes?”

The major shook her head.

“The rumors don't necessarily tell the whole of it even if they're true, General. But no, they only mention one person, sir,” she said, questioning him with her eyes and the slight tilt of her head.

“I see,” Roy said, keeping his face carefully neutral to cover the mix of worry and illicit, shameful excitement that began to stir in him. On the one hand, Fullmetal putting himself in danger alone like that was concerning, if only because he wasn't certain whether, in this state, the man would be moving out of the path of bullets or in. “Either way, get good people on it as soon as you can. Tell them not to interfere unless it looks like Edward's life is in danger. They are to just report back to me.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and gave a cursory salute before turning to walk out the door.

On the other hand, that meant the man was looking for something again – and Ed knew as well as Roy did that the general was the only one who could give it to him.

*

Edward managed to hold off on going out at night for nearly a week after his talk with Alphonse, during which time the two of them tried to fill their time as constructively as they could. Al started taking piano lessons. Ed tried seemingly every restaurant in Central, and made a game out of baiting his neighbors' guard dogs.

But Ed knew that his meager army pension wouldn't be enough to keep up any of those activities – well, the third was free except for damages, though those could be significant, depending on the size of the dog – and so they needed a new source of income, and quickly.

He also knew that just getting out of the house wasn't going to be enough to make him feel better again, feel normal. Sure, he had felt cooped up, but that wasn't half of it. There was something else, too, something he didn’t understand half as well.

He wasn't going to call the bastard. He refused. So, he did the next logical thing, and started sneaking out through his window again.

The first night he did so was more or less uneventful. He got a couple of guys trying to mug some young couple, though the thugs ran at first sight of him and he had to properly chase them down before he could punch them in their crooked noses. Nobody else bothered him the rest of the evening, much to his irritation.

The second night was more fun, because he decided to start running around on the rooftops and pouncing on unsuspecting criminals from above. Even that, with the combined thrill of falling and fighting, failed to satisfy.

The third night, he had a close encounter with a bullet – a little bit too close for even Ed's comfort. He hadn't even noticed anything out of the ordinary until after the projectile had nicked his cheek and carved a line of blood on his face, at which point it was too late to do anything about it. He got the woman who shot it, and got her _good_ – no such thing as going easy on women in Edward Elric's world, because the women in his life never went easy on him – but left the place feeling shaky just the same.

He could easily have died that night. Was his pride worth that? He was full of a heady mix of endorphins and adrenaline, but something was missing. He was getting desperate. The only thing getting what it wanted here was his dignity, and even that was beginning to be suspect.

He collapsed onto his bed that night with a heavy groan, and decided that he was going to have to make that goddamn phone call.

*

“The unnamed vigilante is definitely Edward, sir,” Riza said as she set the tray of coffee and coffeepot down on Roy's table. She was too high-ranking to be delivering his drinks. Didn't he have a secretary for that?

“I see. Thank you,” he said, reaching over for a mug and stirring it with the provided spoon.

“Is there something you'd like to do about it?”

“I will speak with him, Major,” he replied, then took a sip of his coffee. Black with sugar, and just as bitterly invigorating as ever. “Don't worry, I'll take care of it.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, and as she left she gave him a searching look. She could sense that something was up, sure as clockwork. Roy just smiled at her. He was sharing information about this case on a strictly need-to-know basis, and she most definitely did not.

“That will be all,” he said, and she gave him a nod as she shut the door.

*

That evening, before Roy had even had a chance to make a call to the Elric household, he received one of his own. He had been sitting on his couch quite comfortably with a tumbler full of brandy and a book when the sharp cry of the telephone interrupted his peace, and he frowned as he stalked over to the machine and yanked it off of its cradle.

“Hello, Mustang here,” he said, trying to sound as neutrally polite as he could.

“I know damn well who I'm calling, you don't need to tell me,” a familiar voice snapped. Roy arched an eyebrow, even though there was no one there to see.

“Fullmetal? To what do I owe the pleasure?” Roy asked, covering his surprise with a veneer of amusement.

“I dunno, I guess I just wanted to hear your smarmy voice,” Edward snarled from the other end of the phone. Roy winced and pulled the device away from his ear: though the years had mellowed many things about Edward Elric, his volume was not one of those things. “And I'm not Fullmetal anymore, you bastard. I'm gonna call you Colonel as long as you keep calling me that. _No_ , I'm not calling for the joy of your company.”

Roy began to smile then, slowly, as a faint thrill ran through him. He didn't even have to go out of his way, Edward came to him. He gathered up every ounce of authority he had, every bit of power and confidence he had ever felt, that he had ever wanted, and put on the Voice.

“Why _did_ you call, then?” Roy asked, tone powerful and curt. He couldn't think of much that was sweeter than the sound of Fullmetal's deep, shuddering breath in response.

“Don't be smug,” Ed shot back, after a moment – then, quieter, he said: “You know why I called.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you fucking do, or you'd better! You were the one who told me to call you. Anytime, you said!”

Roy's smile turned into a proper smirk.

“So I did. I haven't changed my mind. But, Fullmetal, I thought we had established that in order to get what you want, you're going to have to ask me for it,” he said, silkily. “Or have you forgotten so soon? Do you need a reminder?”

The other man made a small noise at that, and Roy felt the rush of power through him. There was a long silence, and for a moment he wondered if the other man was going to hang up the phone.

“I want... I want whatever you were doing the other night,” Edward said, low and edgy, like he was only just barely restraining himself. “I want to come over to your place and... and have you tie me up, or whatever.” Roy could almost hear the angry, embarrassed blush in the man's voice. The general's early evening lethargy disappeared in the face of that pulse-pounding intoxication.

“That's what you want, but it's not _why_ you called,” Roy said, the Voice radiating across the room and giving his words the force of order. “Tell me why you called me, Fullmetal. Tell me why I should help you at all. Convince me.”

The noise on the other end of the line was choked.

“I – are you really going to make me do this, you bastard?”

“If you don't want to, you can hang up the phone right now and this conversation never happened.”

“ _Fine,_ ” Edward finally spat out, then paused for a moment. Roy couldn't help the smirk that was growing with every extra moment of the man's discomfort. “I've been wanting it so much, whatever... whatever happened the other night,” Ed said, voice quiet. A jolt of arousal shot through the older man, but he had control of himself. He gave nothing away, but waited patiently. “I've been looking for pain again, so I didn't have to call you, but I've... I've tried everything else, been doing things that are stupid and dangerous just for the adrenaline rush but there isn't anything stupid and dangerous enough to make me feel like... like I did, that night, after...”

“After what, Fullmetal?” Roy felt well and truly drunk, though he had barely sipped his scotch.

“...After you tied me up and hit me and I came in my pants on your fucking lap, okay?” he snapped, sounding broken and ashamed and angry. Roy's cock twitched. He imagined Fullmetal on the other end of the line, golden eyes screwed shut as he tried to pretend he wasn't hard and wanting.

“Good. That was good,” Roy said, encouraging, as a superior officer praising a subordinate. His tone changed immediately. “Now, beg me for it.” His voice was low, silky, commanding. “And I'm 'sir' to you from now on, understood?”

This time, the choked nose was one of rage. There had been a time when even the suggestion that Ed should do what his commanding officer asked without question would have been met with flaming rage.

Now, the man was about to beg to do just that.

“Please,” he said, low and quiet. “Please hurt me, like you did last time, or – or worse. I want more.” Another pause. “I need you to remind me how to behave, sir,” he said. By the end of the sentence, Edward's voice sounded hoarse, ready to crack. 

Roy closed his eyes, savoring it: that tone, those words, coming out of Fullmetal's mouth.

“Meet me at my place in half an hour,” he ordered, the full force of authority bracing those words. “Don't be late. You won't like the punishment.”

With that, he set the phone back down on the receiver, and tossed down the rest of his drink, smiling. He had been waiting a very long time for this. Oh, yes. And he was going to make the most of it.

***

***


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

*

Edward didn’t bother to put the phone back on its cradle – he dropped it immediately, leaving it to swing gently from its cord as he took off towards his front door. He yelled back over his shoulder to let Al know where he was going – _“Out!”_ – before bursting out onto the street. He thought he remembered the way to Mustang's place – east? Maybe? – so he didn't bother to stop and make sure because if he hadn't knocked on Mustang's door in half an hour he had a feeling that this whole thing was going to be way worse for Ed.

His feet pounded across the cobblestone and concrete as he darted between the halos of light from the street lamps, heart beating in time to the pattern of his footsteps. Despite the pulse of his body, Ed's mind remained remarkably clear – clear enough to think about all of this, to imagine what might be lying in wait for him.

He had been doing such a damn good job of not thinking about this, not mulling it over, or making plans, or any of those things, that a familiar shiver of nervousness spread through his stomach as he allowed his mind to wander across it for the first time. He suspected somehow that what Mustang had done last time was only the tip of a very large iceberg, and if he let himself go underwater he'd see the monster he had gotten himself wrapped up in.

Ed wanted to say that he didn't trust the man with such a huge unknown, didn't trust the man with this kind of power, but it would have been a lie. If he didn't, he never would have made that call. That was part of the point, wasn’t it? The trust really was there, behind everything.

Ed remembered their first encounter down to the last detail. He didn’t like that he did, and maybe he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t forget. He remembered the shame of it, that he had been reduced to something so pathetic and that he liked it, fuck – but he also remembered that the other man had only ever been encouraging with regards to their activities, even comforting. Mustang had seemed remarkably unapologetic about every sick, twisted thing they had done that evening, almost proud.

The realization that he was bolting across the city at midnight just to have someone hurt him and tell him what to do burned shame through Ed's chest, but none of that shame was Roy Mustang's doing.

He couldn't help but wonder what that meant. Did it mean anything at all? What was all of this, anyway? Not normal, for damn sure.

Fantasies flickered by in his mind, one after another in rapid succession, as he drew nearer to Mustang's house, and felt his heart beat double-time for just a second. Had Roy been having the same thoughts, or was Ed too far below his notice for this to ever really be a mutual need?

What did he even want this to be? What did either of them want this to be?

Well, if there was going to be _need_ of any kind involved, Ed damn well didn't want it to be one-sided. He wasn’t going to be begging for Mustang’s goddamn favors.

A sudden shiver struck him at the thought, followed by the familiar pooling of heat low in his stomach.

His face pulled into a frown. Edward Elric wasn't anyone's dog, not anymore.

He just hoped this wouldn't be one more thing he had to be ashamed of.

He turned the last corner onto Roy Mustang's street, and concentrated on thinking nothing at all.

*

Roy had let himself plan for this moment, bit by bit, in quiet evening moments when the day had been long and hard and the pressures of military life hung too heavily on him. Every day he bit down a challenge to a man of higher rank, every day he spent tactfully dancing around important issues, every day he had to smile and flatter a man who didn't deserve anything better than a jail cell, Major General Roy Mustang had come home and he had planned.

He hadn't known if any of it would be more than a daydream, but in those moments of idle hope, he had made preparations. Several transmutation circles for various materials lay side-by-side on his coffee table, along with a piece of chalk and a few other implements, in case he should get the urge. He almost wished that he hadn't prepared it all so well, because collecting the materials had taken him all of ten minutes and for the past twenty the only thing he had been able to do was sit in his armchair, anticipation stretching every twitch of the clock to an hour.

Roy Mustang was usually a very patient man, but anticipation hummed in his blood, aided by the warmth of the scotch.

A rap from the other side of the door interrupted his wandering thoughts – the sound, he noted, of metal on wood, unmistakable. A glance at the clock told him that it had been barely over thirty minutes.

Fullmetal had been unexpectedly fast – though he didn't know why that surprised him – but it had taken just long enough. Roy allowed himself a brief satisfaction at the victory. The punishment for his tardiness would be sweet.

He stood up slowly and schooled his expression into one of calm indifference as he straightened his uniform. He picked up a circle from the coffee table, then another, considering, and folded them into his breast pocket. Another rap at the door. Roy gave a huff of irritation at the other's impatience, strode over, and swung the door open.

Sure enough, there in front of him stood Ed, looking even more disheveled than usual: Edward Elric, in his old black sleeveless shirt that now clung to his adult musculature too tightly to be strictly decent and the practically painted-on leather pants that had never been decent. He wore his brown jacket open over the both of them, which – whether intentionally or not – let Roy see _exactly_ what he was getting. Strands of his golden hair clung, damp, to the back of his neck, his ponytail in disarray.

He was flushed, he was panting, and he was standing on Roy's doorstep.

“I wasn't expecting you so soon, Fullmetal,” Roy said, keeping his voice admirably calm. He didn't move out of the doorway.

“Yeah, well, you said a half hour, so I ran here,” Ed replied, chest heaving. He glanced over Roy's shoulders warily

The general raised an eyebrow. Their houses were miles apart: the journey would normally have taken a good hour and a half. Judging from the younger man's state, he guessed that the man hadn't bothered with walking. The thought that Fullmetal would ever be so desperate sent blood shooting away from Roy's brain to more important parts, eager to provide what the other man needed.

“Did I make it in time? I better have fucking made it in time,” Edward said, shoulders hunched as he put a gloved hand out to support himself on the door frame.

“Unfortunately for you, no,” Roy said, putting on the full force of his authority into his voice. He pulled a transmutation circle out of his breast pocket and pushed it to Ed's chest. The blonde's eyes went wide, but before he could do anything, the circle had crackled to life, turning Edward's shirt and jacket into ropes that snaked around his arms like living things. They pinned his limbs together behind his back, leaving him bound from his wrist to his upper arm, and pulled his shoulders pulled back sharply. His sculpted chest was gloriously exposed.

“What the hell?” Edward made to jump back, but Roy reached out to grab the other man's ponytail at its base, stopping him before he could move. Ed yelped gratifyingly as Roy yanked the blonde head down, but it didn't halt the man in his tirade. “What the fuck did you do to my shirt? What the hell do you think you're doing, jumping me without warning like that, I'm outside for god's sake, it's cold and people can _see_ me –”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Roy snapped, drawing himself up to his full height. “You are to address me as 'sir,' and I will allow you to come inside when you have properly apologized for your lateness and insubordination.” He glanced down the other man's body, taking in the prominent collarbones and the ribs he could have reached out and plucked; the long, raw-pink cut on his side – were those stitches in it? It hadn't been healed for long, but it had been for longer, he noticed, than the shallow cut to Fullmetal's cheek. He filed those things away in his brain under “To Be Considered at a Later Date,” and returned to the task at hand.

“What the hell, you like it in public too? What do you _do_ to end up this fucked up? Let me go!”

The tree-lined street in front of Roy seemed to be empty except for the lamps that lit it from end to end, but that hardly bothered him: someone could walk by at any time, and the possibility of it was electric on his skin.

“Chalk is inside, above the fireplace like it was last time. If you want it, go get it,” Roy said. He leaned in close, then yanked the blonde around by his hair until he was facing the street. The general pressed the lengths of their bodies together, his front to Ed's back, and pulled the man's head back and down at a painful angle. Roy inclined his head forward, so his breath heated the shell of Fullmetal's ear.

“But we both know that you aren't going to do that. You want this. You were so desperate that you ran halfway across the city, past midnight, just to hear your CO tell you what to do.”

Edward shivered. His eyes flicked wildly from side to side, either looking for an exit strategy or to see if anyone was watching. The lights in the house across the street were still on. The man stared for a moment at the neighbors’ front window, his breath catching.

“Can we – inside?” Edward asked, choked.

“We will go inside when you are compliant. I told you, apologize to me. Then, I want to hear you beg.”

Fullmetal shivered against him, and the feeling set a fire to Roy's skin. He breathed slowly onto Edward's ear, then gave a gentle nip, nothing more than a tease. 

He noted with pride that the younger man's leather pants seemed to be significantly tighter in front than they had been thirty seconds ago. 

“Or maybe,” Roy purred, sliding his unoccupied hand around to the other man's stomach, tracing over hard muscles with evident interest, “maybe I won't take you inside at all. You seem to be enjoying it out here.” He chuckled, and brushed his hand lower, just for an instant. Ed breathed in sharply, turning a deep, beautiful red. Roy brushed his lips for just an instant against the curve of the other man's neck, then did the same further up, in soft teasing touches, until he reached the man's ear again.

“It's funny that you say I'm the exhibitionist. I'm not the one who's hard,” he said, and cupped the evidence just as he bit down on the other's ear.

Edward made a small noise that sounded like half a sob.

“I – you –” 

“Yes, Fullmetal?” The tent in the other man's pants felt almost painfully hard now, and Roy stroked it softly, teasing.

The man was silent for another moment, jaw working around some words.

“I – I'm sorry for being late, sir. Just... please. Let me go inside.”

It wasn't the most enthusiastic begging Roy had ever heard – but then, there would be plenty of time for that later. He released the man's crotch with only a faint disappointment.

“Very well, then. You have done as I asked, so I will reward you,” he said, then pulled the other man backwards through the doorway. Ed let out a hard breath and immediately broke out in goosebumps as they hit the mass of warm air inside Roy's house, like the blonde's body had only just realized how cold he was. Roy ran a gloved hand up and down the other's arm, warming him.

Then, without warning, he pulled another transmutation circle from his pocket and pressed it to the hard plane of Edward's leather-clad ass.

The man jumped in surprise, but couldn't pull away in time to escape the reaction. Roy almost mourned the disappearance of the skintight pants as they transformed into bindings, tying Edward's legs together just above his knees.

Ed yelped in indignation and struggled against his bonds. Roy put an arm around Ed's neck, holding him in place as he squirmed, and tried to ignore the feeling of that body sliding and rubbing against his own.

“You know, you don't have to pretend that you don't like this,” Roy said into Ed's ear. “There's nobody to fool, nobody to impress. Just me.” He paused. “And I like this.” The blonde froze for a moment: then, he gave one last squirm, just to be stubborn, and let himself sag forward.

“...You better not have ruined those pants,” Ed said, halfheartedly.

Roy smirked and let go of Ed's hair, sliding the back of his hand down the man's neck – the blonde inhaled sharply, a reaction to remember for later – then traced down his back, and around to his stomach again. Roy drew one finger along the waistband to the younger man's boxers. 

Ed's breath hitched beautifully, and then Roy shoved the fingers of his other hand into the other's shoulder – right under the metal of the automail port, where it would _hurt_. The man gasped, hard and thick.

“Is this what you want, then?” Roy asked, letting one finger dip down past the waistband of the boxers.

This didn't have to be sexual. It really didn't. But god, he wanted it to be – wanted Edward to want it, too.

Edward made a small noise.

“What was that, Fullmetal? You're going to have to speak up,” Roy said, leaning forward again so his lips brushed against Ed's ear.

“I said, yes. I... want this,” Edward said, eyes squeezed tightly shut, an appealing flush beginning to appear on his cheeks.

Roy smiled.

“You want me to touch you?”

“...Yes.”

“Do you want me to hurt you?”

“Yes!” Ed sounded mortified, halfway to crying. Roy hissed in a sharp breath as his cock began to stir.

“Do you want to come all over yourself while I watch?”

“Yes, you bastard, _yes,_ ” he sobbed, and Roy couldn't fight his arousal any longer. He gave the other man a hard smack to the side, and was rewarded by a low groan that Roy could feel all through his body.

Then, Roy took a few steps forward, pushing the other man in front of him. Unprepared and bound at the knees, the blonde stumbled, and when he did Roy slammed him down onto the couch. He grabbed Ed's shoulders then, and turned him so he was lying on his back, on top of his bound arms.

Roy could see sweat beading on Ed's forehead – from nervousness or excitement he couldn't tell, though it hardly mattered – as he writhed there on the couch, struggling against his restraints. Roy stepped back for a moment to admire the sight, but as he watched he saw Ed go still, forcing his breathing even.

The man took a deep breath, then closed his eyes, and when he let it out he looked like a different man. This Edward was calmer, more confident: he had likely been planning to act this way the whole time, until Roy had startled him out of his assurance. Ed had gathered himself up again, started putting himself back together.

That just wouldn't do. He would just have to find other ways to surprise the man.

“So what're you gonna do to me, you bastard? Huh?” he said, meeting Roy's eyes, unflinching. Roy smirked – _cheeky little shit_ – and began to walk over to where the other man's head lay on the couch. “Come on, give it your best shot. There isn't anythin' you could –”

Roy cut him off by picking up a heavy combat boot and setting it down on Ed's throat, pressing down just enough.

“What the hell?” Edward's gasp was hoarse and strained, voice made harsher by the pressure, the slow asphyxiation. “You're gonna kill me, you – I can't – I –”

“Chalk's above the fireplace like last time,” Roy said, increasing the pressure. “You can even ask me for it. I'll give it to you. But then, you'll go home... unfulfilled.” 

Ed gasped, each breath heavy as a weight, but didn't – or couldn't – say any more. As his face began to redden Roy released the pressure all at once, then put his foot back down on the floor. The blonde inhaled greedily between violent coughs, like a drowning man coming to the surface.

“I thought you said there wasn't anything I could do that you couldn't handle,” Roy said, conversationally, as Edward's breathing normalized. “But you know, maybe we both overestimated you. Maybe you can't handle what I have planned.”

“Fuck you, you son of a bitch. I can take anything your pansy ass can dish out,” he snapped between gasps, struggling against his restraints just to prove a point.

Roy kicked him in the side, hard, and Edward _moaned_.

“Is that so?” Roy asked, harder every second and giddy from the power rush. “Well, we'll just see about that, won't we?” he asked, walking over to the curtains that covered the wall-length windows to either side of his fireplace. He drew them open quickly, one after the other, so that the windows were bare and the scene in Roy's living room perfectly visible to any watchers.

With the light on inside, if someone walked by, the evening's activities would be clear and bright as a cinema picture. Roy hoped someone would.

“What?!” he screeched, struggling to sit up. “I thought we were gonna do this where nobody was watching!” This time he looked properly panicked.

“Stop that,” Roy snapped. The Voice froze the other man in place. “You're not going anywhere. Apparently the last lesson I gave you didn't take,” he said, folding his hands behind his back. He shook his head. “I've been hearing rumors about you, you know. It seems you've taken it upon yourself to relieve Central of its seedy underbelly. Wandering the streets late at night, picking fights with muggers and other criminals... Risky, Fullmetal. Stupidly risky.”

“How the hell did you know about that?”

“Don't interrupt me, Fullmetal. Of course I know. Did you forget that I know everything about what you do?” Roy walked over to the mantel and plucked the piece of chalk from where it lay between the clock and the book-end. He walked back over to the couch and set it down on the coffee table, within easy reach.

“I thought that stopped when I left –”

“Of course it didn't, Fullmetal. Apparently I have to be in control of everything you do because you're just not capable of regulating yourself. And what kind of commanding officer would I be if I let you go off and get in trouble without at least keeping tabs on you?”

“You patronizing bastard!” His voice held edges of real fury. Roy smirked.

“Now, Edward, is that any way to speak to me?

With that, Roy lifted the blonde up and flipped the man over his lap like he had last time, so that Edward's tight ass was situated right in front of him, and a hard heat dug right between Roy's legs.

Roy hit him on the ass, hard, and purred:

“Good, you're doing well. Very well.” He hit Ed again, and the man arched his back, moaning wantonly. “But you know, being like this – wanting me to take control – it's nothing to be ashamed of,” he said, laying a blow on the backs of the boy's thighs. “You get off on it, on being completely helpless in the face of my whims, and letting someone else take care of everything you need for once, don't you?”

A sudden fury flashed through Edward's expression.

“Nobody has to take care of me but _me,_ ” he hissed.

“Oh?” Roy asked, yanking blonde hair back, holding it there. “Well, you clearly can't do this for yourself, can you?” He hit the other man on the lower back again, intensely aware of the press of Ed's erection. “And you've tried. You've done stupid things to try to keep control, but you just can't take care of it yourself, can you?”

Ed closed his eyes and took a hissed breath as Roy's hand caressed his rear and then slipped downward, between his legs, fondling his balls through the thin cloth of his boxers. The older man squeezed, just a little, and then released both hands: Edward whimpered at the loss as his head fell forward onto the couch.

“I can take care of myself,” the younger said, after a moment, looking dazed, but wrenching the words out of his mouth in defiance.

Roy smirked.

“Can you?” he asked, then picked the other man up again, stood, and deposited him on the couch unceremoniously. Edward's look of confusion was nothing short of adorable.

“Where are you going? I thought –”

“If you can take care of yourself, then you should be able to take responsibility for your actions, and take your punishments like an adult,” he said, the voice of reasoned authority. “Can you manage that?”

Edward took a deep breath and closed his eyes. There was a silence between the two figures for a moment. Then, Ed exhaled, and when he opened his eyes there was a harder look in them, more certain.

“I told you, you shit. I can handle anything you can dish out,” he said, returning Roy's smirk with a look of challenge, of pride. That pride had no place on the face of a man with such a wanton body: his hips made small thrusts up into the air, begging for relief where the man himself would not. Roy stiffened at the sight, feeling a sudden lack of oxygen as a sharp twinge reminded him of his rock-hard erection.

Edward did not miss the older man's reaction – he stilled for a moment and watched the other man with obvious interest. Roy could almost see the gears spinning furiously behind that golden gaze. Neither of them moved for just a moment, just long enough for Edward to decide that he was going to try it again: he bucked his hips up into the air, deliberately this time, but instead of letting his eyes fall closed like he so often did, he met Roy's intense stare with one to match it. As he did, his lips parted and he _moaned,_ like a fucking slut.

Roy dragged in a breath and closed his eyes to shut out the image, to keep some measure of control over himself. When he opened them again, he saw Edward grinning at him sharply, and Roy gave a silent curse.

“Aha, I get it now. That's your secret, isn't it, _Colonel?_ You like this just as much as I do,” the man said, looking bright and smugly satisfied. “You need this. You like watching me, and hearing me.” He gave his bottom lip a long, slow lick. Roy tried to reply, but found himself temporarily stripped of speech.

“Now, Mustang,” Edward said with another slow thrust, and another, “if you get back down here and hit me, hit me hard, I promise I'll make noises like you've never heard. I'll call you anything. I'll scream for you, _sir,_ ” he said, never letting his pointed smirk falter. “That's what you want, isn't it?” The blonde looked so intensely sure of himself that Roy briefly wondered if this was even the same man from a few minutes ago.

Fucking clever kid, always trying to flip the tables. Only he could take something that ought to have been a sign of submission and turn it into a power card.

Roy's cock strained against his pants. He would not touch himself. He was better than that.

Instead, he drew himself up to his full height and took a step closer so that he towered over the younger man.

“Oh,” Roy said, voice rumbling and right on the verge of anger. “Do you think you've found a way to control me? Is that what this is?” he asked, and shoved the man back over so that he lay flat on his stomach. In that brief flash before his face turned away, he saw Edward grin like he'd won – doubtless the man was expecting something quite different than what he was going to get.

Roy didn't raise a hand to hit him, like he expected, but instead took the chalk he had picked up earlier and shoved it into the tiny space between Edward's wrists and his rope bindings. Ed made a small noise and began to grind himself experimentally against the couch cushions.

“I guess you think you're a serious player now. Well then, I'm going to have to treat you like one,” Roy growled, and dragged hand down over Edward's ass and the back of his thighs, feeling every muscle through the nearly paper-thin boxers. He stopped at the edge of the automail port, teasing gently at the scar tissue there.

“Wait, what the hell –“

“It would take very little struggle for you to get that chalk. You can stop this whenever you like,” Roy said, bending over to examine the complex machinery of the other man's metal leg. It really was a work of art, far beyond anything that Roy would be able to understand. But, he could manage this one small thing. “You know you won't, though. You wouldn't even like this if you were the one in control,” he said. 

With that, he put his thumbs on the latches at the top of the automail and waited, there, for Edward's recognition.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” Ed shrieked, writhing enough that holding him down became difficult. “The automail is off fucking limits!”

“Is it?” Roy asked, conversationally. “You have your chalk. If you don't want this, use it.”

There was a long moment of silence: Ed squeezed his eyes shut, and Roy's smile sharpened as the moment turned to several, and Ed hadn't moved.

"I thought so," Roy purred, and shoved the latches apart until the metal limb simply came off in his hands. 

Roy groaned at the sight: at how very helpless the younger man looked, how small. Ed panted, mouth open, chest heaving, and Roy's need ached. He wanted -- god, so many things; but he could have patience.

The general put his urges away for the moment and deposited the limb on the coffee table, then traced his hands back up the blonde's legs, stopping briefly to give Ed a gentle smack on the ass for his own satisfaction.

"You don't own this game, Fullmetal. I do,” he said, voice deep and hard. His hands skated up to Ed's shoulders, then over to his metal one. “You tried to take control from me, you little shit. Because you did that, I'm taking it away from you entirely. Every last bit of control, every scrap of dignity and power you ever thought you had is mine now,” he said, just as he found the automail arm's latches and pulled. 

The arm dangled uselessly from the ropes that had been holding his arms together. Roy yanked the metal arm out of the bindings, then rolled Ed over so he could see the man’s face.

“Those hurt to put back in, you son of a bitch,” Edward hissed, kicking up off the couch like he was actually trying to escape. Roy reminded himself that if the other man really was trying to get away, then there was always the chalk.

“I thought you liked pain, Fullmetal. I thought that was why you were here.”

That shut Ed up. He stared at the older man for a moment, like he was considering. His look of panic calmed some, and after a moment, Roy saw the blonde's mouth fall open slightly as he began to pant. Roy could almost feel the adrenaline coming off the younger man in waves.

He looked so much smaller without his metal limbs. The general took the transmutation circle from earlier back out of his pocket, and pressed it to Ed's bindings: in a flash of blue light, they turned to clothes again, lying neatly next to him.

Ed rolled over and sat up, giving Roy a confused look. For just a second, his eyes flickered over to the automail limbs like he was starved for them, for what they represented. Roy took a step back and folded his hands behind him.

“...Colonel?”

“It's General Mustang or 'sir' to a brat like you. Now, I want you to take off your remaining clothing –” Ed went rigid at that “– and I want you to get that insubordinate mouth of yours on my cock. I want you to suck me off. Is that a clear enough order for you, Fullmetal?” Roy asked, voice pressing, utterly present in the basest way.

Ed's eyes went wide with shock: Roy himself didn't move. Everything depended on this next moment. Fullmetal could easily just take his limbs back and leave, or worse.

Instead, he swung his one remaining leg over the edge of the couch and stared at the older man, panting. After a moment, Roy spoke.

“Well, Fullmetal?”

He heard a breath, and then a whisper.

“Yes, sir,” said Edward Elric, looking beautiful and expectant and for once in his life, perfectly vulnerable. Roy groaned so deep it was almost a growl, and as if the memory of those words alone wouldn't have been enough to keep him hard for years, Ed began to shimmy out of his boxers.

By god, did the man have a beautiful body. Even though his collarbones cast too much of a shadow to be perfectly healthy, he had tight, solid muscle on every inch of his frame, decorated by the scars of a hundred victories. Roy was reminded once again of how Ed could destroy him if he ever wanted to.

Finally, the man's cock sprang free of his boxers, red and flushed with want, and the cloth pooled around his feet. Roy stood perhaps five feet away, and examined his prize. 

After a moment, Ed asked:

“So, are you going to come here, or...?”

“Crawl to me.” Roy's voice was a terrible rumble. “I want you on your knees for me.”

Roy could see the flutter of the pulse in Ed's neck as it hammered through him. The blonde made a needy little noise, and then – wonder of wonders – got down on his hand and knees. Then, in sight of Roy Mustang and anyone else who cared to look, he fucking _crawled_ over to the general to kneel, unbalanced, in front of his commanding officer, mouth not two inches from the man’s clothed erection. Roy extended a hand to grip Ed on the shoulder, hard, to steady him.

And also, Roy admitted silently, to steady himself. The sight of Edward kneeling in front of him – bright red all over, confused and ashamed but rock hard regardless – nearly did him in right then. The older man groaned, wondering how long this was going to last.

“Are you waiting for a written invitation?” Roy asked, huskily, and drew his hand through the other man's hair until the hair tie lay discarded on the ground. A sheet of golden hair cascaded around Ed's face, framing the scene.

“No, sir,” Fullmetal said, and went for the button on Roy's uniform pants. Roy's eyes slid half-shut as he watched the younger man pull the zip down and pause, unsure, then take his remaining hand and work Roy's cock free of the cloth.

The man paused again, then, looking at it with a combination of interest and trepidation, like the virgin he so obviously was – then slowly, carefully, he drew his mouth closer and licked.

Roy's world could have ended right then and he never would have noticed. His eyes fell closed without his permission as he tried to suppress the moan that threatened. He tangled his hand in Fullmetal's hair, pulling at it just enough that it would hurt.

“Yes, that's it,” Roy growled, sliding his eyes back open and feeling in control for just that one moment – but that was before Edward took the head of his cock into that perfect mouth and gave it an experimental suck. It tore a noise from him, helpless to stop it.

Roy could almost feel eyes on them from the window, liked to imagine he could: perhaps he was imagining it, but either way the thought lit him up from the inside as a certain tongue lit him up from the outside –

“Deeper,” he ordered, to interrupt that train of thought. “I want you to take it all. Moan like the only thing you've ever wanted was my cock,” he said, and with that dug two fingers into the wires of the bare automail port.

It had to have hurt, because Fullmetal's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he whimpered like a broken thing.

He took the older man's whole cock into his mouth, then – Roy felt stars at the base of his spine, and _fuck,_ this was going to be over too soon –

The general dug his fingers deeper into the port, and focused more on the feeling of power than on the feeling of Ed's clumsy but eager tongue tasting his slit, licking hot stripes from the base to the tip of his shaft, swirling it around the head like he had done this before, like he had been preparing for it...

The image of Edward in bed playing with himself, teasing his cock until he strained just to keep himself still, and all of it done with Roy's pleasure in mind, was enough to break the last of the General's control.

“Back onto the couch,” he growled. Ed looked back up at him, surprised and maybe a little hurt.

“Was I that bad?” he asked, tone giving everything away.

Roy released his death grip on Ed's hair, just for that moment, and petted him gently. Ed closed his eyes and leaned into the caress.

“No. You did a very good job,” Roy said, tucking one strand of hair behind the other man's ear, allowing himself a small smile at that look of bliss. “Believe me when I say that.”

With that, Roy slipped his persona back on again. He bent down and picked the other man up in one smooth motion, ignoring the mortification on Ed's face, and deposited him on the couch, face-up.

“I don't need to tie you up this time, do I?” Roy purred, loving the fact that Ed was so under his control that he didn't even need to physically bind the other man to make him submit. He caressed Edward's naked stomach and chest, enjoying the way his touch brought out needy little noises. “You're as helpless as you're ever going to be in your life, aren't you?”

Ed shivered and whimpered, taking his hand down to brush against his own cock. Roy slapped it away.

“You will not touch yourself, or give yourself relief in any way. Your pain and your pleasure are both dependent on _me,_ do you understand?”

Ed stared at the other man and brought his hand back down anyway, fisting it around his cock, pumping once, twice –

Roy picked up the proper transmutation circle and pressed it to the couch. The patterned fabric rose up in ropes to twist around the blonde's one remaining arm and jerk it tightly downwards, binding it to the furniture in an instant.

“Shit,” Ed said, looking less concerned about the fact that his arm was tied down than the fact that he had no relief, not even any touch at all on the part of him that most needed it.

Roy straightened, then turned and walked towards the kitchen without a word.

“Hey – wait... where are you going?”

Roy didn't answer, reveling in the need apparent in that voice.

“You're not just going to leave me here, are you? After all of that?”

Roy spun back around.

“Well, I was considering it, given the fact that you so blatantly and repeatedly disobeyed my orders,” Roy rounded the corner of the couch again, and gave Fullmetal a hard stare. “Tell me why I shouldn't.”

Ed fixed him with a pleading, _begging_ look, and he whimpered like an animal. After a moment, he managed:

“Because... I want this, so much. I haven't learned my lesson yet,” Fullmetal said, eyes closed. “Teach me what it means to obey you, sir. I want you to show me.”

Roy smiled.

“How could I refuse when you ask so nicely?” He bent over the man's prone form and hit Edward on the cheek, there where he lay. The man gave a heated gasp. “Do you like that?” Roy asked, caressing the red mark.

He nodded. Roy took this as an opportunity to make use of one of the other implements on his coffee-table. The riding crop sat comfortably in his hand.

“You're learning very well. Such a good subordinate. It's no wonder you can't stand not being told what to do.” Roy closed a fist around his own cock, just for a moment's relief. “Now, the question is slightly different than it was earlier,” he said, bending over the blonde's body. “Now, the question is: how much reward do you think you can handle?” he asked, smirk heavy.

Edward's eyes widened.

“You're not thinking about...”

“Don't ask questions, Fullmetal,” he rumbled, ghosting the crop down the other's leg. Then, he jabbed the implement straight into the sensitive jumble of nerve-wires in the automail port. Ed couldn't keep back a heavy noise as he writhed, his eyes squeezed shut in bliss.

“You've done well,” Roy said, running a gloved finger over the hard muscle in the other man's stomach. “Now, kneel. Get on all fours, like a dog. I'm going to prepare you for what's coming next.” Roy activated the circle on the couch again to remove the ropes that tied Ed’s arm. The man did as asked without question. The couch cushions sank down under his weight just enough that the port above his knee rested on the fabric as well. After a moment of struggling for balance with his one arm he braced himself on the couch with his forearm as best as he could, but his position was still so very precarious.

That left him with his forehead pressed to the back of his arm and his ass sticking up in the air, his cock jutting out, begging for some kind of relief. Roy watched, eyes dark and heavy, just allowing himself to take in the sight. Edward must have realized just what he looked like as well, because he flushed a deep red and turned his face towards the back of the couch.

It might have been the most beautiful thing that Roy had ever seen.

He stepped forward – the riding crop sliced through the air and hit Edward on his ass, bleeding a high whimper from him. Another crack, and Roy left a red welt on the back of Fullmetal's thighs, then without warning went for the man's cock. He ran a rough-gloved thumb over the slit, just hard enough to give pain with his pleasure.

Ed drew in a ragged breath, and his whole body jerked forward.

“Oh, you like that, do you?” Roy asked, and the crop hit Ed's upper back – his other hand stroked the man's erection again.

Roy would _not_ touch himself. This would end altogether too soon if he did. He refused to give in to his baser instincts.

He whipped the crop down onto Ed's back again, then again, and again, then lower, and after a brief pause caressed the man's balls gently with the leather tip.

“I love to see you like this,” Roy said, voice coming out huskier than he had expected. “So gorgeous... and so powerless.” He stroked the other man's side, the heat of it searing even through his gloves.

“Look at me,” he ordered, and after a long moment, Ed did. His expression had lost the embarrassment, the emotion covered up by an insistent need, a dizzy sort of look. He made a noise like sobbing as Roy gave his cock a single, long stroke from tip to base, then stopped.

“Tell me what you want.”

Ed looked at him, absolutely at Roy's mercy, and said:

“Please, let me come now, sir,” Ed whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut.

That was it. Those were the words Roy needed to hear.

“On your back,” he growled, and Ed flipped over without a second thought, looking young and vulnerable and hopeful because now Roy was going to fix all of the world's problems at once.

The general turned to set the crop down on the coffee table, then picked the automail limbs up and turned back. Edward stared, eyes hungry, at them – those symbols of his strength, his independence – but he did not reach for them. His eyes flicked up to Roy's face. He knew what the general was planning to do.

Ed wet his lips with a slow stroke of his tongue, then said: “Please do it. I want you to do it.” 

His words were so needy and desperate that Roy couldn't have resisted even if he had wanted to.

He knelt down by Ed's side, put the automail down beside him, and stroked his hair, gently. Then, he murmured:

“My intention is to reward you, now. You have done well.” He paused. “I won't hold it against you if this isn't what you want. Are you certain? I will make you come, one way or another.”

Edward's gaze caught him, those golden eyes hot on his, and the man nodded.

Roy wasted no time in lining up the automail with the man's ports. He grabbed Edward's hand and placed it on the metal of his own shoulder, while Roy kept one hand on the shin, the other one tracing around Ed's most sensitive places.

“Push it in when I tell you to,” he said. Edward whimpered, squeezed his eyes shut, and nodded.

“Alright... now,” Roy said, and pushed the automail leg back up into place just as Edward did the same to his arm, and Roy made one hard stroke down the shaft of Edward's cock.

Fullmetal's eyes flew open.

“Oh, _fuck,_ ” he wailed, and with horrible, _wonderful_ little noises, he was coming hard, back arching up off the couch as he spasmed, jerked, thrust into Roy's hand, face contorted into an expression that might have been bliss.

The man squeezed his eyes shut, and Roy saw that he had clenched his jaw had so tightly that the muscles of his neck stood out in unnecessary relief.

His erection hadn't flagged at all, so Roy began to stroke again, slow and firm. Edward moaned ruttishly, pushing into the tightness, and the general reached a hand down to fondle his balls, teasing, testing, then squeezing them gently. Ed began to whimper in earnest, noises uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

“Ah – General,” he sobbed as he fucked Roy's hand from below.

It was Roy's turn to groan this time, as adrenaline coursed through him like he hadn't felt in years, and he nearly came without being touched like a fucking teenager as Edward's moans reached fever pitch and those golden eyes locked on him and the man came, again, all over his stomach and Roy's hand with that same broken wail.

He bucked once, twice, again, into Roy's hand, and then lay still.

After a long silence, Edward sat up, slowly. They stared at each other. 

“That was...” he began, then shook his head as if he couldn't find the words for what he wanted to say. “Thanks.”

Roy nodded, not trusting himself to speak after that display. He stood up from where he had been kneeling and ran a hand over Ed's hair, smiling as the blonde closed his eyes for just an instant.

“You enjoyed that, then, I take it?”

“Um... yeah,” Edward said, eyes cast down to the ground. His reticence was so at odds with this wanton picture – him, sitting naked on the couch and covered in his own come – that Roy almost laughed.

Roy’s own hard-on was so painful, though, that he almost wanted to do the opposite. It stuck out of his pants insistently, and he ignored it with a firm determination.

“Your automail doesn't hurt anymore?” Roy asked, stroking Ed's hair again. “I thought the pain lasted longer than that.”

“Aches some, sure. But you'd be surprised what a good dose of endorphins and adrenaline can do for pain,” Ed replied, working his arm back and forth, stretching it like he would have if it had been made of flesh. It clicked as it moved, and in the heavy quiet Roy could hear the otherwise imperceptible sounds of pumps and gears every time the younger man moved. Roy didn't miss the wince as Ed moved his arm at a particular angle.

“No, I wouldn't be surprised at all,” Roy said, wryly. “Let me get you something to clean that up.” He turned towards the bathroom, but just before he could escape, Ed caught him by the hip and turned him around.

“Wait,” he mumbled, red-faced, “but you never...” He flicked his eyes down to Roy's cock, then back up to the older man's face.

Roy closed his eyes to block out the image in front of him, and to file it away for later use.

“That's fine, Fullmetal,” Roy said, putting on the voice again. “I am in control of myself, unlike you.”

Ed's expression flashed from embarrassment to anger. He stood up without warning and shoved Roy backwards, hard, onto the armchair next to the couch.

“Don't give me that, Colonel. Now sit down and shut up,” he snapped, then knelt down in between Roy's spread legs and swallowed his cock down.

Roy choked on a noise and fisted a hand in that blonde hair to pretend for a moment that he was the one in control of that situation. Really, he wasn't even fooling himself because that tongue, that knowing look in Ed's eye was making him come undone. His breath came harder, and he couldn't help but thrust shallowly into that open mouth.

Ed sucked gently, lips working around the head of his cock, and suddenly there was a tongue on his slit and a metal hand gently massaging his balls, then – _fuck_ – he was coming, body jerking and neck straining as his head fell back, less than a minute from when that mouth had first touched him.

The last thought he remembered having was that Edward Elric swallowed like a fucking pro.

*

Roy had said that his bedroom was the perfect place to clean them up, with a king-sized bed and a bathroom right across the hall, and so Edward had followed him up, trying desperately to ignore the flutter in his stomach that he knew would be shame if he let it be. Instead of paying attention to it, he walked right into the room and flopped straight onto the bed so he could stare at the ceiling properly.

It was a nice ceiling, and a nice room, too, with three long sets of burgundy drapes that presumably turned into windows in the daytime, and a bookcase that took up half of the other wall. The whole place exuded warm brown tones, from the heavy mahogany armoire to the gold-brown carpeting. It all looked clean, and quite tidy. Edward thought – uncharitably maybe – that Mustang probably hadn't done his own decorating, or his own cleaning either.

Ed draped an arm over his eyes so that he wouldn't have to see it, and could think in peace. Why hadn't there been any sex? He had kind of expected there to be sex. Maybe. Maybe he had misread the whole thing. He had hoped –

Hoped what? Well, Roy had seemed interested enough, earlier. And after the last one of these, he had been so nice, so kind and comforting and he'd made Ed feel like maybe he wasn't such a freak after all, like at least there was someone out there who was even more fucked up than he was. What had he wanted, after all? 

He heard Roy come in, a muffled tap of boots on carpet, and heard the man set something down on the wooden bedside table with a faint clink. The younger man did his best not to jump in surprise as he felt a damp cloth on his stomach, wiping away the mess with gentle strokes.

“You're really pretty tough, you know,” Roy said, tone unreadable. Ed pulled his arm off of his face so he could look at the other man. His expression gave no extra clues, damn him.

“You patronizing me?” Ed asked, mouth drawing down into a scowl.

Roy blinked, brow furrowing.

“I wouldn't dream of it – no, I mean it,” he added, in response to Ed's snort of disbelief.

“Please. Condescension has always been your default setting. I suspected for a long time that you got off on it, but now I know it's literal,” Ed said, and looked away to glare at the ceiling instead. “You've been smug and superior since I was twelve.”

He heard Roy sigh, and watched through the corner of his eye as the man picked up another clean cloth, and continued his gentle wipedown of Ed's stomach. He took extra care around the raised pink cut that ran the length of Edward's side, from his stomach to his back, fifteen stitches long. It had healed pretty well, all things considered. He didn't need that kind of delicate treatment.

He didn't try to stop it, either, though.

“That's true, I do get off on power. And you get off on being helpless –”

“That doesn't mean –”

“– but you're probably the most stubborn, least submissive person I've ever met in my life, Edward Elric, and I have met a great deal of stubborn people.”

Ed's brain met a wall then, and took a few seconds too long to recalibrate.

“But I thought...”

Mustang waited in silence as Ed thought it through, and the younger realized suddenly that the other man wasn't even using a cloth anymore, just tracing his chest with bare fingers. Ed felt his skin prickle.

“I thought you liked making me feel like shit,” he said, finally, watching Roy out of the corner of his eye.

Ed's heart dropped into his stomach as he saw the look of pain – or maybe pity – that crossed Roy's face then. It was gone nearly as quickly, covered up by a look of disbelief and a raised eyebrow, but Ed knew he had seen it. A flicker of guilt cut him, stinging.

“Whatever would have given you that idea, Edward?” Roy said, keeping his voice neutral. “I thought that the whole point of the exercise was to fulfill your dangerous desires without getting you or anyone else hurt.”

Ed's face twisted. “Don't you try to act like you were being altruistic,” he spat, and rolled over onto his side so he was facing away from the other man, because anger was easy, comfortable. Besides, Ed knew, he _knew,_ that this was about Roy and what Roy wanted, and one of these days he was going to find out what the catch was. There was always a catch with Roy Mustang.

“Oh, I most certainly wasn't doing that,” the general said, sounding entirely too pleased. Ed snorted. Fucking admitted it, at least.

“But, Edward, look,” Roy continued. Ed didn't let himself respond to a sensation of a hand running through his hair, but watched Roy out of the corner of his eye. “This –” He gestured expansively, indicating the two of them, the bed, presumably their varying states of undress “– doesn't change anything between us. I won't treat you any differently than I did before,” he said, his other hand moving to rub Ed's back in faint circles. “I'm not under the impression that you're my servant or my subordinate. Hell, you're not in the military at all now. I wouldn't even want you to call me 'sir' unless we're in bed.”

The blonde didn't say anything. Why would the man be saying this sort of shit? Maybe because he didn't want Ed to freak out and stop all of this.

Or maybe, another part of his voice said, maybe Roy meant it. What if he did? 

What did Ed even want him to mean?

“We've been becoming friends since you left my command,” the general said, after a moment. “I don't intend to give that up. Do you?”

Edward laughed briefly.

“Friends? Is that what this is?” He paused. “Do friends do this sort of shit to each other?”

There was a silence as those words sunk in for the both of them. Ed resolutely tried not to blush or in any way to let his embarrassment or confusion be known. _No, no, no – Edward fucking Elric, you shouldn't be **saying** these things. Do you want him to want you?_

_Besides, he never would anyway. He can have anybody he damn well wants. Most of those people probably just wouldn't let him tie them up and order them around, that's what **you're** for. Anybody else would probably be appalled. And why shouldn't they be? Relationships have to be between people who think they're equals._

After a moment, Roy responded:

“ _For_ each other, Edward, not _to_ each other.” He stroked Ed's hair again, and the blonde hated how nice it felt. “I'm not entirely sure what you mean, though. I don't know if you mean that we can't be friends if we do this, which is bullshit, or if we should be more than friends.” His voice sounded entirely too rational, too soothing. Ed didn't try to respond, which was good because Roy didn't give him a chance to.

“But I just want to make it clear that I don't expect anything from you, and you don't need to feel obligated to make this into anything, just because we’re engaging in this kind of play. All I'm saying is, you shouldn't rush into anything. I know that's a lot to ask from you,” he added with a short laugh. “Rushing into things is almost your defining characteristic. But this doesn't have to be anything other than a mutual fulfillment of needs. You don't have to feel like you ought to do anything.”

Ed laughed again, and it wasn't a happy sound.

“I get it. So I'm good enough for you to hit but not even good enough to fuck,” he said, feeling suddenly very tired. He sat up, once again really aware of his nakedness, how thin he was, and how pale. He heard Mustang make a choked noise, like he was trying to figure out what to say. Why give him the time? Ed swung his legs over the side of the bed and made to get up.

“Ed, you have it wrong,” Roy finally said, putting a hand on Ed's shoulder as his feet met the ground. “That's not what I meant at all. First of all, I would never hit you unless you wanted me to. You'd never let me anyway.”

“Damn straight. You'd get a broken nose at the very least,” Ed said, shaking the hand off his shoulder and standing up, stepping over to his folded boxers and sliding them on, followed by the leather pants that lay next to them.

“I believe it.” Roy said with some amusement, then sobered quickly. “As for the last part... I had no idea you were even interested.” The look on his face was probably confusion, maybe surprise – or maybe he was faking it, Ed had never been particularly good at telling the difference.

“Me down on all fours for you wasn't a clue?” Ed said with a weak laugh. “Listen, thanks for a good time. I'm out of here.” He took a step towards the door, but before he could go far a hand shot out and caught him around the wrist.

He didn't know what he wanted, but he knew what he didn't want. He didn't want to be the General's playtoy, his object, his possession. He wanted to be someone the man respected, someone who was worth something. Like hell he was ever gonna get that from Mustang, though.

He yanked his arm out of the other's grip and strode towards the door.

“Fullmetal,” Roy said from behind him, in that voice, the one that made Ed shiver and have to fight to keep his rational mind present. “Come back here. We're not done yet.”

Ed turned around, wondering why he was still doing this, why in hell his body wouldn't obey when his mind was so determined.

“I thought you weren't going to treat me any differently? So much for that,” he spat out, glaring daggers at the other man. Slowly, something in the general's posture shifted, sagged, and in a moment he looked as tired as Ed felt. 

“You're free to leave if you don't want to hear what I have to say,” Roy said, sighing, all traces of that commanding power gone. Ed stood there still, tensed, halfway between the bed and the door.

“I'm listening. Say it fast.”

“Look, Fullmetal – Edward. I'm not going to lie and say I have any particular plans for the future, except that I want to do this again – soon. As soon as we can manage. Sooner, even. I hope that clears that part up,” he said. Ed stared mutely. “If your question is whether or not I still respect you after this? Well, I would be very grateful if you didn't rub what I'm about to say in my face. But, let me say it aloud for once in my life: I respect you almost more than any other man I've ever met,” said Roy Mustang, sitting on the edge of his bed in his military uniform with a small smile, looking – of all things, dammit – sincere.

Ed stood there, frozen in place. The other man watched him, not a goddamn hair out of place, and Edward was sure that he looked like a fucking mess, and he was having this conversation with his pants unbuttoned and without a shirt on. This was one of those times when he really hated Roy Mustang. 

Or at least, he wanted to. But what could Ed summon up to defend against that kind of praise? He had never gotten any praise from the man in his goddamn life, except – except during –

It got even harder to hate the man when Ed's stomach lurched into his feet as he heard:

“And, if the question is about my willingness to fuck you, then rest assured that I would be happy – no, thrilled – to provide you with that service,” Roy said.

And that was it. Ed's world was coming down around his ears. Maybe, just a bit of him wanted to believe – needed to believe that Roy really wanted him. He felt a certain lightness draw in around him then, or maybe that was his mind calling it quits and disassociating itself from the physical realm. That had to have been it, because Ed heard himself ask:

“And if I wanted to fuck you?”

He was determined not to blush, so he didn't let himself look away. He just stood there, hands clenched down by his sides, and stared at the other man. Did he even want to have sex with the general? Apparently so. If he was gonna do that, though, it was damn well going to mean something. Edward refused to be a throwaway fucktoy. He wasn't a throwaway kind of person.

Roy shrugged in response.

“In that case, I'm sure something could be arranged,” he said, voice carefully neutral.

Then Ed was two inches from the other man's face, feeling a predator's satisfaction at the look of surprise he saw there.

“Alright, then, prove it to me.” He paused to draw a long breath. “Prove it all to me,” he said, then leaned in to capture Roy's mouth. It was a hard press of lips, without any grace or subtlety, but subtlety had never been his strong suit and Edward was sure that he was at least as surprised as Roy was that they were kissing, now, for the first time.

...Oh.

Shit.

With that, Edward shot out into the hallway, leaving a swinging door and a shell-shocked Major General behind him. By the time the man's brain came back Ed planned to be long gone, off to find someplace he could hide, someplace he could think, someplace he could bide his time and carefully rearrange his world.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BDSM porn is best porn. Yes?
> 
> Also, the more you comment, the more motivation I have to post the next chapter quickly!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry, guys. I just realized there's no porn this chapter. There's lots of sexual tension, though!

**Chapter 3**

*

One fine Sunday morning, Alphonse Elric awoke to a series of loud clatters from downstairs, and possibly – no, definitely, he couldn't mistake it – the sound of whistling. He glanced at the clock - 9:06. No one should even be awake in their house at that hour, much less moving. He slipped out of bed in perfect silence and padded along to the door of his bedroom, glancing through the open crack to make sure no-one was there before opening it, wincing at the creak of hinges.

He made it to the top of the stairs before the sleepy, paranoid side of his brain was satisfied: it couldn't be a burglar because nothing was gone, and also because it would be a very strange burglar who sneaked into somebody's house only to start cooking bacon. The greasy, beautiful smell of it permeated the air, and Al floated down the stairs almost without touching the floor, supported only by the prospect of pan-fried sin.

If it wasn't a thief, then it had to be his brother, of course, though the thought of Edward being up at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning just to make bacon seemed so much much less likely than burglary.

“Brother?” Al said, rounding the corner to the kitchen. “Is that you?”

“Who else would it be?” Ed replied, his back to Alphonse as he performed some magic with a spatula and a skillet, presumably upon some delicious pig meat. He turned around to his younger brother, skillet in hand, and gave him a wide grin. “So there's bacon if you want it. I kind of burned the first batch a little bit, but I think it's still edible,” he said, with a jerk of his head towards a high pile of the stuff on a plate by the stove. “Next couple were pretty good though.”

Al eyed the bacon and his brother with equal suspicion.

“It's not – poisoned or anything, is it?” he asked, frowning. “You haven't done anything horrible to it?”

It was Ed's turn to frown then. “Of course not, why would I do that?” he said, turning around so he could slide the bacon from the pan onto the plate. By the time he turned back to face Al, the frown had already smoothed back into a smile. Alphonse stared in bafflement.

“Brother, are you okay? You're acting weird,” Al said, crossing his arms. Ed laughed.

“There something weird about wanting bacon?”

“There's something weird about Edward Elric cooking bacon at nine o'clock on a Sunday, yes. Usually I can only get you out of bed before noon at great risk to my person.”

Ed shrugged and picked up the overburdened plate, walking to deposit it on the kitchen table between two empty, smaller plates.

“I woke up this morning and felt like making breakfast, so I made some for the both of us. I'm just in a good mood today,” he said, sitting down at his chair and plucking a strip of meat off of the plate. He ripped the end off with his teeth and swallowed it down, chewing being just one more unnecessary step in the bacon’s journey to his stomach.

Al should have been suspicious – and it was weird, his brother hadn't been himself lately – but Edward just looked so happy sitting there and dividing up the pile of bacon that Al couldn't help the smile that crept over his face.

“I'm glad, brother. You've been in such a bad mood recently that I was just surprised, that's all,” he said, sitting down opposite Ed and picking up a piece of his own. Bacon was a finger-food in this household. Living with Edward, just about everything was finger food.

“Have I been?” Ed asked, furrowing his brow for just a second, like he was thinking. “I guess I have. Sorry about that. I made you breakfast to make up for it!”

“No you didn't. You made breakfast because you wanted bacon.”

“Ah, maybe,” Ed said cheerily, ripping off another bite of bacon. “But hopefully, I'm going to keep being in a great mood for a while at least. I think I'd like a job,” he said. Alphonse couldn't quite tell if the last sentence was at all related to the one before it or if the man just hadn't bothered to attempt a segue. It didn't much matter which it was, really, as long as Al got to see his brother bright-eyed and chirpy in the morning at least a few more times in his life.

“Excellent, I'm so glad you've come around about the job thing,” said Al. “It's about time, too.” Edward made a face.

“What do you mean, 'it's about time?' You've never suggested us getting jobs before. It was my idea,” he growled, though without any real vitriol. He crammed another piece of bacon in his mouth.

“I'm so glad you think so,” Alphonse said, smiling beatifically. “That must mean I'm doing it right.”

The blonde gave him another look, one eyebrow raised and mouth pursed, like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to smile or frown. He settled for a kind of bemusement. Alphonse finally took a bite out of the strip of meat himself. Grease and salt coated his tongue as he chewed delicately, enjoying the crunch of it between his teeth. He wondered when his brother had learned to cook bacon – certainly not from Al, though that wasn't for lack of trying.

“You've been spending way too much time with a certain general we know,” Ed said, jabbing a finger in his direction for emphasis. “You've been picking up his bad habits. Now I'm not even sure whether you've actually been subliminally messaging me or if you're just sayin' that to make me think you did.”

Al nodded, still smiling. “Then all is right with the world,” he said, and picked up another piece.

*

Several days without any noise at all from Mustang had Ed on edge, snappish and bafflingly nervous. Not precisely angry, maybe, not yet, but – he had taken a huge risk that day, in Roy's bedroom, and he had thought that maybe…

But no such luck. He didn't know why he had expected anything different. Honestly, he didn't even know what he had expected, exactly. Maybe a goddamn telephone call, for one, something to make him feel like he hadn't completely and irrevocably fucked shit up.

The only refuge from that kind of assholery, or from his own nervousness, was alchemy. People were so much more confusing. Alchemy never lied to you, never made you think it was gonna turn steel into a sword and then go and set you on fire instead. Sure, you could get it wrong, but usually then you got a chance to make it right again afterwards unless you were being colossally stupid and trying to do something you really shouldn't be doing at all, in which case that was probably the end for you.

Or maybe people weren't so different from alchemy, and Ed’s problem was that he was trying to do something he should never have been trying to do in the first place. Maybe interactions between people had laws and rules and shit, too, only he could just never seem to figure out what any of them were, except equivalent exchange. That was a given.

He was a lot better at figuring out chemical equations than people equations.

Numbers and chemicals and elements made sense, he thought as he sat at the desk in his library, pen working steadily across his paper. He scribbled down notes, possibilities for the numbers, symbols, shapes that would allow him to transmute cyanide into its antidote. The mental puzzle calmed him and grounded him, reminded him that there were things in the world that made sense.

He didn’t even know his brother was in the room, at least not until Al's voice startled him out of his reverie.

“You know, I had an idea yesterday,” Al said, and Ed glanced over to see him lying on the library couch with a book perched on his stomach. He looked comfortable, and halfway done with his book besides – he had probably been there for hours.

“Yeah?” Ed asked, turning his attention back to his notes. He was so close to the answer to his problem he could practically smell it. He had lined up strings of numbers and variables next to chemical reactions on his ink-smudged page, with the solutions to each out on the side. 

In alchemy, the hard part was figuring out which damn question was the right question. Finding the solutions was the easy part. He just had to read an equation to know what numbers went where, just like he only needed to read a sentence in a book in order to know what it said. The fact that everybody else in the world seemed to want to take the long way around frustrated Edward to no end. Well, everybody did but Alphonse. Sometimes he thought that Al was the only other sane person in the world.

Edward wished more people were like his little brother, although it was decidedly unfair that the younger brother got to be smarter and taller.

“You remember, we were talking about getting jobs?” said the younger brother in question, abruptly reminding Ed that they had been having a conversation. “Well, I think we should do some civilian contracting for the military,” Al said. Ed spun around in his chair, scowling.

“I take back everything I just thought!”

“What? Brother, I –”

“Obviously you're out of your fucking mind! You can't possibly expect me to go back to working with that – that _bastard_ again,” Ed snarled, pointing his finger at Al accusingly, as if it were his little brother's fault that the man was a complete and total shithead. 

“Why're you so angry at me, Brother?” the younger asked, looking at him with those giant brown eyes, and Ed immediately felt guilty. “I haven't done anything. I just suggested a possible employer.”

“Yeah, but you're clearly trying to be a sadistic torturer because otherwise you would never tell me to work under him again!”

Alphonse blinked, taking this all in.

“Um, Brother? I thought... We've all been friends now for a while, right?” He paused, brow wrinkling. “I mean, I didn't know you were still so angry at him. We have him over for dinner all the time. Well, not _all_ the time, but a lot, anyway.” The younger man sat up and turned towards his brother, putting his book face-down on his knees to hold his place. Confusion was evident on every line of his face, and Ed felt guilty for that, too. “I thought that you two were getting along now. You certainly seemed to be,” he added, in a tone of gentle teasing. The blonde hoped violently that Al didn't mean what Ed thought he meant.

“Well... we were,” he said, feeling suddenly embarrassed, like he had done something wrong. “We were becoming friends. Are,” he corrected himself, clenching his pen in his hand. 

Al would be suspicious if Edward said that he and the General weren't friends anymore. And maybe it wouldn’t be true –maybe they still were? The bastard had promised that nothing would change between them. Not calling for several days – hell, several weeks – was kind of normal for the two of them, but that didn't make the Ed any less nervous about it. When he had said he didn't want anything to change, he wasn't sure _that_ kind of not-change was what he had meant. 

“Or whatever,” he muttered, to fill the space left over when Al didn't respond. “That's got nothing to do with anything.”

Alphonse's expression changed from one of confusion to one of incredulity. He raised his eyebrows, just this side of amused.

“Brother, you're sounding suspicious.”

Dammit, Alphonse.

“I'm not suspicious,” Ed muttered, scowling. “Why would I sound suspicious? There's nothing to be suspicious of. _You're_ suspicious.”

Alphonse started smiling then, and damn him if the expression didn't seem knowing.

Ed hated having a brother. He was disowning all former siblings.

“Regardless of the General, I think it would be a good idea for us to offer our services to the military to do civilian work. He probably wouldn't even be our liaison. Why are you so worried about this, anyway?”

“It’s nothing. I just don't want to be their dog anymore,” he said, running a hand through his hair and frowning as it came away with a smudge of black ink on his fingers. He had probably smeared it all over himself. Alphonse wisely did not comment.

“We wouldn't be their dogs,” he said, instead. “We could refuse any assignment we didn't want to do. I don't think you should let your relationship with the General get in the way of a perfect opportunity to do some good – and have something to do at all.”

That sentence startled Ed so much that for a few seconds he couldn't even manage to fish up a response. 

“What the fuck are you trying to say?” he finally shot back, because being angry was way easier than having to deal with or, god forbid, talk about whatever the fuck was bothering him. “Whatever you think is going on there, you're wrong.”

Al's eyebrows floated even higher, and Ed could just see this tiny little crook to the corner of his younger brother's smile that might have made it into more of a smirk. In any case the look on the younger man's face was entirely too _something_ for his own good.

“I wasn't saying anything at all, brother,” Al replied, smiling.

“Yes you were!” exclaimed Edward, face heating. Why the fuck did Al's mouth get him out of trouble while Ed’s own mouth only got him into more? “You were _implying,_ ” he said, like it was a dirty word.

“ _I_ was talking about your antagonistic semi-friendship, or whatever it is that you two have. I wonder where your mind jumped so quickly?” he asked, like he already knew the answer.

“ _My_ mind? You were the one who said it!” Ed stood up violently from his desk, almost slamming his chair over on its back. “I'm fucking leaving.”

Alphonse just sat there on the couch, smiling like nobody's business, and didn't say anything at all.

“Fuck you,” said Edward, feeling storm clouds gather over his head as he stomped out of the room, leaving his fucking telepathic brother behind, probably having _stupid_ thoughts in his _stupid_ head, goddammit.

*

Al could just make out his brother's form curled up under rumpled bedsheets, the back of his ponytailed head the only thing visible above the linens, as the younger squeaked the door open and took a step inside. Moonlight streamed in through the window onto the wooden floor in slanted shapes – they must have been up studying later than he had thought. He paused for a moment, wondering if Ed was still awake. He made a quick decision and padded over to the edge of the other's bed. The mattress creaked and shifted as he sat down, but Ed didn't so much as move.

“Hey,” said Al, tentatively.

Edward let out a heavy breath, like he had been holding it all this time.

“Hey Al,” the blonde responded.

“I'm sorry I teased you,” Al said. “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I didn't mean anything by it, I promise.” The stiffness in his brother's back began to relax visibly. “I just thought that it might be a good idea for us to work alongside the military, as long as we didn't have to join up. That's all.”

Ed took another breath, audible in the silence of the room.

“Yeah, you're right, as always,” he said, and Al smiled. That had to have been hard for Ed to say.

“I'm glad you've noticed. I think it'll be good for us.”

“Yeah.” He paused. “'msorry I freaked out. I dunno why I did.”

Alphonse knew his brother well enough to be able to tell when his brother was lying, but decided that it would be mean to call him out on it. Al had some Suspicions as to why all of this was happening, with a capital “S,” and if he was right, he wasn't going to do anyone any good by bringing it up at this point. He would only make his brother defensive and uncomfortable – well, more so than he already was.

The last thing Al wanted to do was to make the other feel under attack. He had been getting a sense of genuine contentment from his brother over the past couple of days – getting up early? Making bacon? Whistling? – like he hadn't since before their mom died. Not just happiness, either – the word for it was definitely contentment, which had seemed not so very long ago almost anathema to Edward's person. 

No bristling at conversation. No baiting strangers, or strangers' dogs. There hadn't even been any night excursions in days.

This sudden reversal had Al thinking, and thinking hard.

“You know,” he said carefully, testing, “the General's not so bad. He's done a lot for us. He's been a good friend, too, since you quit the military.”

Ed made a muttery, disgruntled sort of noise. “Yeah,” he said, and pulled the blanket up further.

“He really does like you.” Ed snorted, by way of reply. “No, I mean it. Really! You don't have to be like this about him. Are you still mad about the stuff he did when we were younger?”

“No, it isn't that.”

Al nodded. That was good, at least. He knew his brother was volatile, but he was glad to know that the man wasn't stupid, too.

“Maybe you're mad at him about whatever it was you two were doing that one time. You know what I mean. I can't pretend that I really understand it, but if that's really it, maybe you should talk to him about it?”

Ed didn't respond for a moment, sitting up halfway and propping his weight on his metal elbow behind him. He smiled, tiredly.

“Nah, it's fine, Al,” he said, running his human hand through his bangs to get them out of his eyes. “Don’t need to talk about it. That stuff was just kinda weird as hell. ‘Sides, I don't like feeling like I'm in the fucker's debt, or anything. He's not my boss anymore, and I like it that way. Don't want him to go getting ideas. The bastard's not allowed to boss me around anymore. I quit the military so I didn't have to deal with that shit.”

Al nodded again, listening for everything his brother wasn't saying.

“Well, if we were working for him, and the way he was treating you ever got to be a problem, I would talk to him. I would have a very forceful talk with him. So you don't need to worry,” said Al decidedly, which – for whatever reason! – made Ed break into a grin.

“You do that, Al,” he said, laughing. “What I wouldn't pay to see that. Roy Mustang versus Alphonse Elric. He wouldn't stand a chance.”

Al paused for a moment, trying to decide whether his brother was making fun of him or not. But the look on the other's face seemed too bright, too genuine to be mocking. The younger returned the expression in kind.

“Well, he should know by now – Elrics look after their own,” said Al. Ed snorted a laugh.

“Ain't that the truth. Ain't that just the goddamn truth.”

*

“Lieutenant Havoc, why would one person want to let another person tie them up? Or tie another person up?” Alphonse asked, feeling faintly embarrassed for reasons he could not quite express.

Havoc grinned widely, clenching the end of a cigarette between his teeth, and clapped Al on the back so hard that he actually stumbled forward.

“Well, Alphonse,” he said, looking pleased in a way that might have frightened the younger man a little bit. “Let me introduce you to the wonderful world of adulthood.”

*

Roy had decided that a casual dinner out with both of the two brothers would be a nice, nonthreatening way to open things up again after everything that had been said and done. A tremor of nervousness harried his stomach all day beforehand, a fact that he never would have admitted under threat of torture but nevertheless could not escape. All of the solid ground in his and Edward's relationship had been quite thoroughly upended. Making the wrong move seemed like the fastest way to lose a fantastic sexual partner and two burgeoning friendships, besides.

So, he decided, dinner would be with both brothers. He didn't want to come on too hard, but not coming on at all would be just as dangerous. It was a delicate situation. Roy excelled at delicate situations.

The dinner seemed to be a wise choice, because both brothers seemed at ease, happy to be eating good food in good company. To Roy's relief, Edward seemed much the same as always – cheerful, talkative, and painfully enthusiastic. Though he couldn't be sure through Ed's clothing, he thought that the man might have been on his way back to a healthy weight again. In fact, he looked even better than usual, maybe downright happy as he picked up his half-eaten chicken leg again and delivered his latest bit of news.

Roy tried without much success to keep the surprise from his voice as he replied.

“Contracting? You're going into civilian contracting?” he asked, eyes flicking back and forth between the brothers. “For the military? But I thought you were violently determined not to work for me anymore.”

Ed ripped another piece off of his drumstick with his teeth, to the evident disgust of a room full of diners and the disapproving stare of one Alphonse Elric. The elder brother didn't even seem to notice his faux pas – or if he did, he didn't seem to care. He just snorted and pointed the now meatless bone at Roy.

“Don't you get a big head,” the blonde said, around his mouthful of bird thigh. “It wouldn't be for you. Just with you. Or around you. Sometimes,” he added. “Doesn't fuckin' mean anything.” He sounded a little bit suspicious, like he was expecting Roy to pull a “short” joke out of his dusty arsenal just because he had mentioned that the two of them might be working near each other on occasion.

Roy restrained himself valiantly.

“What brought this on?”

Alphonse fielded that one.

“Well, Brother and I have both been going a little crazy recently, without anything to do, and since I'm all better now –”

“Not better enough to go around doing anything dangerous,” Ed interrupted, sharpening a glare in Roy's direction. Al gave a huff of irritation at his brother's lack of concern for proper conversational etiquette.

“I have no idea what you could be accusing me of,” Roy said, giving the man half a smirk as he folded his hands on the table. “Why would I put poor Alphonse in danger? It's not as if it would be of any benefit to me.”

Ed's face went red-hot so quickly that Roy could almost see the steam coming off him.

“You bastard, you keep your hands _off_ –”

“Brother, he just said that he wasn't going to do anything! Stop trying to hear things he's not saying!” Alphonse said, sharply. “Behave. Major General Mustang is paying for dinner.”

Roy hadn't been informed of that fact, but decided to be the bigger man and not make an issue of it. He smiled, equal parts amused and proud – Alphonse seemed to be developing some hidden talents, which was no surprise as he had been watching the general work for years.

Ed turned an imploring look to his younger brother.

“But, Al –”

“Brother, I think you should go to the bathroom.”

Ed blinked, confused. “What?”

Al glared at his brother, a look that Roy could only assume was full of meaning because the blonde alchemist stared back for a few seconds, then shoved his chair out from the table and stood up, looking not so very unlike a boiler reaching the critical point.

“ _Fine,_ whatever,” he said, then turned to the nearest waiter – halfway across the room – and snapped: “Hey, waiter! Get me two plates of apple pie and the crème brulee, double time. And when I say double time I mean it.”

The waiter nodded, looking considerably smaller and more terrified than he had just a few seconds previously as Edward stalked off towards the bathrooms. Roy turned a wondering look to a cherubic Alphonse Elric.

“How did you do that?” the general asked. Al just smiled.

“Trade secret,” he said, cheerful. “Can't go giving them all away, can I?” He paused then, his look shifting from bright to thoughtful. “Though it seems like you might have a few secrets to share with me,” he said, cementing Roy's suspicion that Alphonse was really the cleverer brother.

“What do you mean?” the older man asked, taking a bite of his salmon.

“Well… I don't really know what you've been doing for Ed, but it's been...” He paused. “I haven't seen him eat this much in months. He seems normal, again. He's been wanting to get out of the house more, just to do things, and when we finally sat down and made plans for work he looked like he might just hug me. And that's not something Ed does very often,” Al added – in case there was any confusion on that point, Roy supposed, amused. There was not.

Roy paused for a moment, considering.

“Were you aware that Ed has been 'out of the house' every night for a month?”

Al fixed him with a pleasant smile. If Roy had been a lesser person it might have made him shiver.

“Of course I am, General,” the younger man said. “What kind of brother would I be if you knew what he had been doing better than I did?”

This one was going to be a real terror someday. Canny and quick, a proper genius, made even more dangerous by the fact that he was so easy to underestimate... For a second, Roy felt Maes Hughes's absence like a knife, but it slowly began to subside back to its time-dulled ache.

“You don't miss much, do you?” Roy said with a chuckle.

“No, General, I don't,” the younger man said, still smiling. “And I haven't missed the fact that Brother hasn't gone on his little nighttime adventures recently, either. For the past, oh... week or so.”

Roy laughed again. “Alright, then. I'm sorry I underestimated you. Did you actually want to know something or were you just passing the time with idle conversation?” Unlikely.

“I wanted to say some things, and ask some, actually,” Al said, polite as can be and innocent as a bear trap. He tore a piece off of his dinner roll and chewed it slowly, like he was savoring every taste. It was just a dinner roll, but his expression was one of sheer bliss. 

“I'm listening,” Roy said, and sipped as his drink. Quite a good dry Cabernet.

“Whatever happened between you and my brother, that one time, have you kept doing it?”

“That depends on what you mean by 'kept,'” Roy said, swirling his wine around in his glass to let it breathe.

“Well, what would you mean by it, if you said it?” Al returned.

Roy gave the other a wry look. He was being beaten at his own game – not, he added mentally, that he was trying very hard. “I would mean that it has happened once more, yes.”

“I guessed as much,” Al said, with a thoughtful nod. “And it makes Brother happy?” He looked very young then, for a moment. Roy sighed.

“I don't know, Alphonse, although that's the idea. You tell me.”

Al nodded again, clearly not interested in answering Roy's half-asked question.

“I see. And you're not... hurting him?” The older man choked on his Cabernet, and Alphonse blushed. “Um, permanently, I mean. Or badly.”

That, at least, he could answer without feeling like he was going to scar the boy.

“I certainly hope not,” Roy said, recovering himself. Al made a thinking noise.

“Good,” he replied, tapping his fork on the edge of his plate absently. “Also, what are your intentions towards my brother?”

Roy wisely had not taken another sip of his wine since the last mishap, or else he might have breathed it in again.

“Excuse me?” he asked, smoothing his face out into what he hoped was a neutral expression.

“You had better hurry up and answer me, Ed will be back soon,” Al said, with a meaningful tilt of his head. Full of what meaning, however, Roy couldn't claim to be entirely certain.

“What kind of intentions do you mean, and what makes you think I have any intentions in particular towards him at all?”

“Well, I learned a little bit about all of this, General, so I wouldn't be totally in the dark anymore about what was happening with my brother. I had never heard about anything like it, before all this started.”

Roy's incredulous amusement only grew.

“Oh? Did you look it up in a library?” Roy asked, with just a hint of the patronizing, because that seemed like exactly the sort of thing an Elric brother would do.

“No,” Al said, frowning slightly and stabbing a piece of his steak. “I don't have access to a really good library, if you remember. Brother can't get into Central Library, either, now that he’s not a state alchemist anymore. And what would I have looked up, anyway? Even if it had a section on kinky sex practices – which I'm pretty sure it doesn't – I wouldn't have known to look there.” He started to blush, and stared very determinedly at his plate. Roy resisted the urge to pat him on the head. “I asked around,” Al mumbled, stirring his mashed potatoes.

Roy cocked a smirk, like the hammer of a gun.

“Oh? Who did you ask?”

Al flushed even redder.

“That's not important, General,” he said, his panicked subject change lacking his usual grace. “The point is, now I know this thing is sexual –”

“It isn't always.” Al paid no attention Roy's interjection.

“– and I get to ask anyone who has sex with my brother what their intentions are,” he said, finally dragging his eyes up to look at Roy directly. Alphonse's protective instincts seemed to beat out his embarrassment, at least for the moment.

The general paused, thinking, and took another drink of his wine. He hadn't really planned on this at all, had never considered a situation in which he would be forced to defend himself to Alphonse Elric.

“Alphonse,” he said, carefully, “I didn't just wake up one morning with 'intentions,' as you put it. Intentions evolve as the situation changes.”

Al raised an eyebrow.

“Is this the beginning of an elaborate excuse for why you get to fuck my brother and make him think you have something that isn't there and then leave him whenever it's not convenient anymore? Because if so, you should just stop talking. I really don't want to hear it,” he said, voice acid and expression worse.

Roy put a hand to his temples and rubbed them slowly. Damn the Elric brothers, damn them and their huge eyes and their difficult questions.

“No, Alphonse,” Roy said, trying to sound calm and certain and not too exhausted, “That's not it at all. I'm saying that I'm more than willing to see where this goes in the future, but I have no plans for the moment. You shouldn't expect me to, yet,” he said, tone pointed. “Right now, however, Edward and I have a mutually beneficial arrangement where – outside of the bedroom, at least – Edward calls the shots.” Roy regained his smirk at the sight of Alphonse going red down past his neck. “I'm not taking advantage of him, he is a full and willing participant in everything we do. You said yourself that he has been in a demonstrably better mood since we began our activities. Is that enough for you?”

The two of them sat in silence for a moment. Al looked at Roy with a sharp, calculating expression that made him feel like the younger man could see everything.

“I think, for the moment – oh, Edward! You're back quickly,” Al said, expression as serene as ever as his brother strode over from the entry hallway, hands shoved in the pockets of his knee-length leather coat. He was grinning again, which Roy took to be a good sign.

“Eh, not fast enough,” he said, sitting down in his chair with an audible thump. “I got bored. Ended up improving all of their statues in the entryway –”

“Edward!” Al said, looking like he could die of mortification. Roy just laughed. They both could imagine what Edward meant when he said “improve.” The blonde man was many things, but “tasteful” was not one of them.

“Don't bust a lung, Al. I'll change ‘em back,” Ed said, waving a hand back and forth in a placating gesture. “I think they're hella cool, though. Anyway, then I was done with all of 'em so I decided to come back and see if you two were done gossiping like old maids yet, or whatever it was you think you were doing, and fuck it if you weren't finished 'cause I was coming back anyway. Ah, good, just in time for my dessert!” he said, drumming his utensils on the table absently as his golden eyes focused an intense stare on the contents of a tray that was bobbing over to him on the shoulder of a resigned-looking waiter.

Without a word, the man unloaded the desserts onto the table in front of Edward, and the blonde descended upon the apple pies like a storm.

Roy made a thoughtful sort of noise as he watched the other man eat, and finished the last of his wine. Edward seemed remarkably calm now about having been excluded from the conversation, more amused by the whole thing than anything else. Now that Roy considered it, he realized that the younger man's earlier red-faced fury had actually been fairly strange – outbursts like that had been such infrequent visitors these days that he had almost forgotten what they looked like.

This deserved testing.

“Gossiping?” Roy asked, putting his glass back down on the table. “I don't know what would have given you that impression. Alphonse and I were having adult conversation,” he added with a smirk, waiting to see how the other reacted.

“Oh yeah?” Ed said with a snort, and swallowed his mouthful of apple pie. “When did _that_ get to be a thing you did?”

“Oh, I'd say when you were about –”

“'s bullshit, anyway,” Ed interrupted, scooping the last bit of dessert number one into his mouth. Roy frowned, folding his hands on the table, and wondered – not for the first time – where the younger man put all of that food. “You two were gossiping. What the hell kind of 'adult' conversation would you be having that I couldn't be around for? I blame Alphonse,” he said, not sounding particularly perturbed. 

“If that's what you want to believe,” Roy replied, keeping his voice pleasant. This must have been a totally different man from the one who had left his room in such a hurry several nights before, because this Edward grinned like the devil himself, looked Roy straight in the eyes, and said:

“I know what you two were talking about, you know.”

“Is that so? Do tell,” Roy said, meeting Ed's eyes with an arched eyebrow. The smug confidence that the blonde now exuded looked damn good on him. Roy thought with some irritation that the other man probably did know exactly what Roy and his brother had been discussing – that would explain the sudden change in demeanor. From cheerful to furious to utterly self-assured in the course of one evening – the man was as predictable as the weather in April.

“Nope,” said Edward, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “You know what it was, I don't need to tell you,” he said, and then, locking his intense gaze on Roy's eyes, did something entirely distracting: he took a spoonful of his dessert and gave the curve a long, slow lick, obscene in both intention and effect.

Roy stared, unable to tear himself away, as the blonde flipped the spoon over and did the same to the other side, then swirled his tongue around it, looking for a moment every bit the experienced seducer. Roy swallowed around the sudden dryness in his mouth, Alphonse watched the exchange, wide-eyed and apple-red, and Edward said:

“Oh, nothin' to say for once, General?” He spoke the title like an insult, or a challenge. “You're staring. See something you like?” he asked, sharp smile wide across his face, then stroked the curve of the spoon again with his tongue to catch the last bit of custard cream.

Roy felt the need to try to work something out of his parched throat.

“I'm sure –”

“Don't even try, Mustang,” Ed interrupted, casual voice cast over a painfully confident, terribly delighted expression. “I shoulda known it would be this easy to get you to shut up. I've been lookin' for ways to leave you speechless for all these years, but I've been goin about it the wrong way, haven't I?” 

The older man couldn't find it in himself to argue, because apparently the blonde was right.

Alphonse shot up from the table, nearly knocking his chair over backwards in his haste.

“O-kay I think I'm done here thank you for the dinner General it was a pleasure as usual I would be happy to talk to either of you when you're both sane again,” he spurted out in one breath, and Roy wondered when it started happening that Major General Roy Mustang could be thrown entirely off-kilter by the intentional and unintentional efforts of two teenagers. Al turned an imploring look on him, then to his brother. “But please, for the love of god, you two figure out whatever you have going on, if only for the sake of my mental health. I'll see you when you get home, Brother. I'm leaving.”

“Without dessert? Suit yourself,” said Edward, and took another bite of his own, cheekbones faintly dusted in pink. At least he had the grace to feel embarrassed. “I'm gonna milk the general for all he's worth, though.”

“I'm sure you are,” Al said, stepping away and shoving his chair back in violently. “See you both later. Please don't cause any trouble while I'm gone. ” With that, he spun around and made for the front door like a desperate man.

They sat in silence for a moment, Ed staring at the table and Roy watching Al's retreating back with a tired amusement, doing his best to ignore his lingering arousal.

“You know, of the two of you, Alphonse is much cleverer,” Roy said after a moment. Ed gave a long, put-upon sigh, and scooped up the last bit of his third dessert.

“Tell me about it,” said Edward, and gave a dry laugh.

***

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again: comments motivate, energize, encourage me. Love to you all!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, a day earlier than promised, several days later than requested!
> 
> Porn this chapter, guys. Also, this is where the warnings for major social ineptitude come in.

Chapter 4

*

It took only about a week for the military bureaucracy to fully negotiate the Elrics' contracts and have them on the first assignment, a sign of how frankly desperate the military was for alchemists who could and would do work outside of a lab or off a battlefield, though no-one would ever admit it. It took Roy and Ed about only about three days of working near each other to get in their first major fight, a sign of –- well, he hadn't quite sussed that out yet, though he was doing his honest-to-god best.

“Are you trying to insult us?” Ed snapped, slamming his hands down on the desk and glaring at Roy with a fire in his eyes like he used to, once upon a time. Alphonse stood beside him with his hands folded in front of him and stiff shoulders, managing to look somehow both resigned and peeved at once. “I thought it was bad the last time I did shit for you sons of bitches, but this is another level! Like hell I'm gonna waltz around and do this kinda work for you. We're the fucking Elric brothers. We could kick all your asses if we fucking wanted! We don't gotta do your dirty work if we don't want to.”

Funny how the genius Edward Elric's ability to use proper grammar dropped to a grade-schooler's level when he got angry –- a grade-schooler with the filthiest mouth Roy had ever heard, true, but the childishness was unmistakable.

“You are a military contractor,” the general said, voice edged in amusement combined with more than a sprinkling of irritation. “Dirty work is in the job description. It's written in to your contract, actually,” Roy said, finally allowing himself his first knifing smirk. “Page five, halfway down: 'You are our bitch.' Didn't you notice?”

Edward snarled like a wild thing.

“You bastard, I'm not anybody's -–”

“Brother, calm down!” Alphonse shot out, interrupting Ed's burgeoning tirade. “And shame on you too, Colonel, for encouraging him like this.”

Both men looked appropriately chastised. Sometimes Roy very much missed the half-shy, awkward eleven-year-old he had met such a long time ago –- that younger Alphonse had been far too polite to ever tell his commanding officer off.

This situation was crucially different than it had been back then, however. He had never been Alphonse’s superior, of course, but now he had no official jurisdiction whatsoever over either of them. 

“Official,” being of course, the key word. The Elrics were hardly stupid, and the fact that they had officially been assigned to work with Lieutenant Burne from Resources hardly disguised the fact that Roy had more than a casual hand in their affairs.

“My apologies, Alphonse,” Roy found himself saying.

“Yeah, sorry,” Ed muttered, standing up from where he had been bent over the table and running a hand through his bangs. He gave the general another glare, though with not half the intensity. “But seriously, Mustang. Sewer work? Really?” Roy raised a perfect eyebrow.

“Were you expecting something more glamorous?” the older man asked, putting his elbows on the table and lacing his fingers together. “If that's what you're looking for, you should look elsewhere for gainful employment. The truth is that someone has to design and implement a new plumbing system for Central headquarters. That is hardly the specialty of any of the State Alchemists. If you decide not to do it, we will be forced to either hire an engineer and a construction crew, or an engineer and a set of alchemists to do the actual constructing. On the other hand, either of you two could probably design a functional plan in your heads right now, and be done putting it together before dinnertime.” Ed shifted, frowning. “You should be honored, Fullmetal. I recommended you to do something I thought that no one in the military could do.”

“First of all, don't call me that. That's not my name anymore. Second, I knew you had a hand in this crap. You were feeding me all those pretty words about how we're not actually working together and you’re not my superior officer and you couldn’t order me around even if you wanted to or whatever the fuck you were saying but it's not really different than it was before, is it?” Roy had a feeling that the other man's dark glare had to do with more than just his painfully plebeian assignment. “Come on, Al, let's go,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the door.

“Oh no, Brother. You can go home if you want –- maybe you _should,_ if you're going to be such an infant –- but I am going to stay and do the job that I agreed to do and that I am getting paid for. You can do whatever you like,” said Al, his genuinely pleasant smile doing nothing whatsoever to disguise the tone of threat.

The general wondered briefly where the Edward he had conversed with at that last dinner had gone. Ed was nothing if not extreme in his emotions, but the range of them over the past several weeks had been nothing short of astonishing. 

Roy was a smart man. He could put two and two together to make four, and he could easily connect angry office Edward to awkward bedroom Edward and painfully forward, sexually confident Edward to make something else entirely. 

It didn't take a genius to see that the man was scared.

That made too much sense. The hot-then-cold, supremely volatile attitude would be Ed’s natural reaction to the unfamiliar: Edward Elric met anything that frightened him with either a blinding anger or a headlong charge, full of grace and more than a healthy dose of cockiness. But Roy knew from experience that a deep self-doubt suffused the other man's arrogance – no, confidence, because to be fair, Ed's self-assurance was far more often justified than not. Even when it had been at its worst, Roy had only ever been allowed to see this doubt in glimpses, but over the years those flashes became less and less frequent. Such doubt was not, perhaps, so central to Edward as it once had been, the older man knew that it had never quite disappeared, like a pair of gloves he had begun to outgrow but hadn't quite gotten around to throwing away.

“Your brother's right, Edward. Be reasonable. I'm only trying to help you,” the general said, remembering an instant too late just how childish Ed was acting at that moment, and remembered also how a young Fullmetal had once reacted to the idea of one Colonel Mustang helping him in any way.

“Help?! The fuck do you think you're saying?” Edward snarled. Roy may have gotten a sense of the cause of all that anger, but that didn’t mean that the result was any less frustrating. “You've been using us since –- wha, hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?” he squawked, as Alphonse grabbed Ed by the waist and hauled his older brother over his shoulder. “The fuck, Al?! Put me down!”

“Sorry about this, General,” Alphonse said, with a tiny bow towards the general as his brother flailed about, an exercise in futility. Al may not have been a suit of armor anymore but apparently he was still quite strong when he had a mind to be. “I'll talk some sense into him.”

“Thank you, Alphonse,” the older man said, not bothering to hide his relief. Al turned and marched out the door, taking his squalling brother out with him. Roy felt a smile break into his expression, though for what reason, exactly, he couldn't be sure. 

The next day, Central Headquarters had a new, better designed plumbing system that was no longer leaking into the third floor women's bathroom, and Roy had a red-faced Fullmetal back in his office. The blonde made no attempt to hide his emotions, which was unreasonably charming. This time, he stood with elbows locked and shoulders hunched in front of the general's desk, mouth wrinkled down into a scowl, as if he blamed Roy for his embarrassment.

Roy smiled, leaning back in his chair

“What brings you here today, Fullmetal?” he asked, pleasantly. “Back for more of the usual?”

Ed snorted.

“No, you bastard,” he muttered, eyes on the floor. “I came to apologize,” he said, then stalked over to the office couch and flopped down on it, arranging himself so that he took up as much of the furniture as he could manage. He looked so much like he used to, in the office in East City, that Roy was inexplicably glad that he had kept the old setup.

“Oh? I had no idea you even knew the word,” Roy said, smirking more out of habit than anything else.

“Save it, Colonel. General. Shit, whatever.” He could hear the deep breath Ed took across the room. “I'm not here to fight with you. Al said he thinks he knows what you've been doing, and he convinced me. He says you’ve been getting us jobs that aren't dangerous or physically demanding, for his sake, what with his new body and all.”

Not just for Al's sake, Roy added silently, but decided not to interrupt.

“And, y'know, jobs where nobody's gonna ask us to do anything that’s wrong, or make us leave home.” He slung his right arm over the edge of the couch and stared at the door he came in through. Roy allowed himself a quiet laugh.

“I must confess that my reasons for the last one may not have been entirely altruistic,” he said, carefully.

Ed's eyes shot over to the other man in half a second.

“Yeah?”

Roy sized the blonde up carefully: Ed was unique in his ability to look tense, even when slouching, boneless, and sprawled across three quarters of a couch plus half of one coffee table. 

“Well, Edward. I have very much enjoyed our arrangement. I also enjoy your and your brother's company. Please don't take it any way other than the way it was meant if I say that I don't want to let you go at such a... critical time.”

Edward didn't respond, just stared at him. Roy wished he could know whether the blank look on his face covered up a flurry of thoughts or whether it was just utter confusion. One moment dragged into several, and after probably thirty seconds even Roy had to suppress the urge to squirm.

“Edward? Something the matter?”

“Critical... how?” the blonde finally asked, a faint edge of suspicion to his voice. Roy winced, wondering if he deserved such mistrust. He probably did.

“I just mean that we're trying to figure out what this” – he made a vague inclusive gesture –- “is, and what it's going to be. I imagine that you wouldn’t much want to leave right now, either.”

“Well, no, but that's not the point. In any case, I dunno what you’re tryin’ to figure out. I think you and I're pretty clear.”

Roy's eyebrows shot up.

“Are we? I must say, Fullmetal, for once you seem to be several steps ahead of me. Please, enlighten me.”

“Don't make fun of me -–”

“I'm not,” Roy interrupted, then sighed and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples slowly. “I just don't know what you mean.”

Edward seemed to give this some thought, then said:

“Well, it's pretty obvious what you think of this, isn't it? You're still bossing me around, and you promised you wouldn't. You said that what we did in -– well -– I mean.” Roy didn't have to open his eyes again to know that the other man was probably blushing hard. “You promised that what we did those times wouldn't affect anything. You haven't kept up your promise. I dunno why you expect me not to be angry when you're still acting like you've got me and Al singin' on cue.”

Roy's laugh sounded tired, even to his own ears. Edward was going to be the death of him, and probably sooner rather than later.

“Edward, I haven’t changed anything at all. We've acted like this towards each other for, what is it, six years now? I tease, you explode, everybody gets back to their day. What exactly were you expecting?”

“I dunno,” Ed said, shrugging as best as he could with one arm still slung over the back of the couch. “I guess I just hoped that you would start treating me like an adult, like someone worth five minutes of your time.” Everything that went unsaid in that sentence made Roy hurt. “I mean, I'd want you to take me seriously anyway, even if we weren't –- you know,” he added, this time suppressing any outward sign of embarrassment. “I'm eighteen now. Not a kid. I haven't been for a long time, anyway.”

He said it as if Roy weren't painfully aware of that fact. He ran words over in his mind, selecting each one with care.

“If I made you feel like you aren't valued, then I am sorry. That was never my intention. I just enjoy our verbal sparring, that's all. I said I wasn't going to change how I treated you just because of our private activities, and I haven’t.”

Edward watched him for a moment, considering. After a moment he stood up, then stretched his arms above his head, rocking from heel to toe and back.

“Alright,” he said as he let his arms fall to his sides. “That's cool. Whatever. I'll see you later.” With that, he turned and stalked towards the door.

Well, shit. Roy had no idea how his constant attempts to say the right thing kept ending up so – so wrong. Edward Elric was probably the most complicated person that he had ever had the beautiful misfortune to become involved with.

“Wait, Ed,” Roy said, on instinct. An intense relief cut him as the man stopped in his tracks, though he didn't turn back around. “I'm sorry. Allow me to take you to dinner to make up for it.”

The words hung suspended between them for a moment. Edward turned back, excruciatingly slowly.

“I'm sorry, what?”

“Dinner?” Roy's mouth repeated, automatic practices taking over even as he hoped he was judging the situation right. “I would be honored if –”

“Spare me your souped-up Casanova bullshit,” Ed spat, and Roy winced internally. Automatic mode clearly hadn't helped. “You can't pull one over on me with that crap.” 

“I would never hope to try to pull anything over on you. But, I don't see how being nice to a prospective date hurts anything,” he said. Edward blushed down to his roots.

“You don't need to be nice to me, _General._ I'm not a delicate little flower.”

“Don't tease you, then don't be nice to you?” Roy asked, one eyebrow up. “Forgive me if I'm confused, you're sending very mixed signals. You're going to have to make up your mind.”

Edward just stood, frozen, staring at the older man in bafflement.

“...You meant it, then?”

“I never would have asked if I didn't.”

Another pause.

“And you'd be paying?” he finally asked, cautiously. The general smiled -– of course that would be Ed's primary concern. 

“Naturally. I was the one who asked, after all.”

“Well.” He paused. “My policy is to never turn down a free meal,” he said, like a concession.

Roy found that response so amusing, so utterly Edward, that he had to suppress a laugh. Somehow he suspected that the younger man wouldn't appreciate it.

“Wonderful. Meet me at my place at seven? Oh, and dress at least somewhat nicely,” he said, straightening up in his chair.

“I'll put on whatever the fuck I want to, Mustang,” he growled as he turned back towards the door and stomped out. Roy watched the other man's rigid, retreating back, and smiled.

Such a horrible idea probably shouldn’t make him so happy.

*

“So, I heard you're dating the General now, Brother. That's nice.”

“Shut up, Al.”

“Do you want me to help you pick out something to wear for tonight?”

“Shut UP, Al!”

*

The door glared at Roy from the front entryway no matter how steadfastly he tried to ignore it. His eyes kept flickering up off of the faded, handwritten pages of his book, and he was certain he had read this paragraph before – possibly multiple times. Even if he had, he had to do it again, because none of it had lodged anywhere in his brain and he was determined to read until at least some of it stuck. 

His task was not helped by the fact that he had unwisely chosen to sit in his living-room armchair, the one he would now forever associate with Edward, naked between Roy's knees, unbound hair swinging back and forth as his head bobbed up and down on Roy's cock...

The man took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and refocused, pushing those images away forcefully. He stared at the page in front of him. The book stared back. Roy could have sworn it looked smug.

Roy slammed the book shut and reached for his brandy. It occurred to him that among the many other distinctions it could claim, this evening would mark the first time that he had ever felt the need to study up in preparation for a date -– at least academically. If he did any kind of research before a normal date, it tended to involve candy and flowers and a certain lady’s preferences with regards to either. Somehow he didn't think that Ed would appreciate either.

The second strangest thing about the evening was how nervous he felt. Roy hadn't felt this out of his depth romantically since he had been a teenager himself. He wasn’t entirely unused to romancing men, but trying it with Edward Elric was a different matter in every conceivable way. In fact, Roy’s brain couldn’t quite put “Edward” and “romance” together in the same sentence without utterly shutting down.

In short, Roy was having some major second thoughts. His cock wasn't, though. No – at least one part of his anatomy was completely and utterly certain.

Nothing could quell the sudden panic, however, when a voice interrupted his silent musings.

“Whatcha reading there?” it said, sounding entirely too familiar. Roy sat up like a shot, nearly dropping his book, to see Ed leaning on the frame of the door into the entry hallway. He put the text down on the side-table carefully, to avoid any more such incidents.

“Ah, Fullmetal. I see you didn't bother to knock,” the general said, standing up out of habit, both to be polite and because he didn't want to think about the last time Edward had seen him in that chair. He tried to avoid going on dates with raging hard-ons.

“Well, I did, but you didn't answer,” replied Ed, hands shoved into his pockets, and stepped into the living room. Roy couldn't help but notice how the orange light from the fireplace caught in the younger man's loose hair, or how he had left the top three –- _three_ -– buttons of his shirt undone, baring the top of his chest to Roy’s appreciative eyes. His black pants were so neatly pressed –- if Roy's eyes did not deceive him, there were even creases down the front of the legs –- that it couldn't possibly have been Ed's own work.

“Unless I'm losing my hearing, that can't possibly be true. I was listening quite intently for your arrival,” Roy said, enjoying the line of muscle that swept from Ed’s neck to his exposed clavicles.

“Okay, I lied,” the blonde said, quite unconcerned. “What’s the use of knocking if I know you’re just gonna let me in anyway?” He took a few steps into the living room, then plopped down on the couch he had so recently occupied in quite a different capacity. “Listening ‘intently,’ huh?” he asked after a moment, grin dangerous.

Roy decided not to respond to that last part.

“You seem not to have picked up on this, so I’ll fill you in: it’s not really considered polite to transmute people's doors open, as a rule.”

“Eh, you don't mind,” Ed replied, body relaxing into the couch, sharp smile never faltering. The man looked altogether much more confident than Roy had been expecting, much more purposeful and knowing. Immediately the older man regretted allowing the other to sit down on that couch at all.

“True enough. If I did, though, you wouldn't be sitting there as comfortable and burn-free as you are,” Roy said, amiably. “Please keep that in mind.” He paused, took a breath. “You're very well pressed, this evening. I don't think I really expected you to make any special effort.”

Ed made a face as he glanced down at his clothes.

“Al did it. He didn't really give me a choice in the matter.” He paused, awkward for only a moment. “Except the hair. The hair was my idea. But, y'know, Al can be really fuckin' persuasive when he wants to be. Which I guess is all the time,” he said. Roy smiled at the smooth change of subject, and decided to let it pass. “You know, he knew about this before I even got home? Fuckin' ambushed me at the fuckin' door.”

The older man laughed. Edward was the only person he knew who regularly used multiple-expletive sentences in casual conversation.

“I assume you mean our plans for tonight?” A nod. “Well, I'm not at all surprised. I believe we have established that Alphonse is much cleverer than you. I see a lot of myself in him, actually.” Roy cut off the indignant remark by saying, “You really do look extraordinary, though. You're going to turn heads tonight.”

Ed blushed to his toes and stared at the wall, one of his preferred defense mechanisms.

“You should wear your hair like that more often. It suits you very well,” the general said, a statement crafted with the express intention of causing the other man to redden further, and that had the added benefit of being true.

The other man did exactly as expected, except for one part. He flushed like he might die of embarrassment, then turned to Roy and said:

“You know, you're barkin' up the wrong tree if you're trying to use compliments to get into my pants. I don't work like that.”

Roy frowned briefly.

“There are several things I would like to say to that. First, why would you assume that my compliments are anything but entirely genuine? I've never given a compliment I didn't mean one hundred percent. To a date, in any case,” he corrected when Ed snorted. “Secondly, I thought that sex, eventually, was one of the points of the exercise?”

“What do you mean, 'exercise'?” Ed hissed. Roy sighed, wishing he'd had more brandy already so this part of the evening would be at least marginally less trying.

“Not 'exercise' as in something I'm forced to do, Edward. Exercise just as in 'action,' something new we're experimenting with,” he said, then stood up and walked over to the back of the living room, opening the glass-paneled door of his liquor cabinet to examine the contents. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Normally, you don't need alcohol to deal with something you're supposed to enjoy,” Edward said, every word accusing.

“That is categorically untrue,” Roy replied with a short laugh as he pulled his gold-label brandy off of its shelf. He eyed the level of the liquid with some regret – only about a third left, and he hadn't bought it that long ago. He sighed, and made a resolution not to have any more for the rest of the week. Assuming that this evening went well, he amended. “Also, I would appreciate it if you would try not to be so touchy. I am doing my best to make this a pleasant experience, but you are making it very difficult for me.”

Edward shot straight up off of the couch, eyes narrowed. In the light from the fire they almost glowed yellow, like a cat's.

“If I’m so much trouble for you then _fine,_ I'll leave,” he spat, squaring his shoulders. “Forget about all of this,” he said, and stalked back over to the entry door. Roy poured brandy into a clean crystal glass, never looking up to watch the teen's angry fit.

Time for a different approach.

“Well, that would be a shame,” Roy said, tone light. “I did manage to get reservations at the Seven Sisters restaurant on the East Side.”

Edward froze for a second, halfway to the door. After a moment he twitched and swung back around to face the other man. He hunched his shoulders, tense, like he would spring in any direction at the slightest provocation. He stared at the general with a furrowed brow.

“The... the Seven Sisters? That Xingian place?”

Roy allowed himself a flicker of self-satisfaction. At least this one well-practiced skill translated perfectly to Edward.

“The reservations are for seven forty-five. Someone from the motor pool will be arriving to take us there at seven fifteen. In the meantime, why don't you sit down and have some of this brandy? It's quite good.”

“Isn't it all expensive and shit?” asked Ed, the wariness never quite fading.

“Well, yes, technically speaking, but so was the lock you transmuted open. I shudder to think what you might have transformed it into. At least you will only make my brandy disappear, and that is what it was intended for.”

He watched Fullmetal in silence for a moment. The younger man walked back into the room, looking calmer than he had moments ago but significantly less at ease than he had been just a short while before that. Amazing, Roy thought, and more than a bit sad, that a set of compliments could unsettle the blonde so easily, and so thoroughly. 

Ed strode over to stand in front of Roy, plucked the glass from his hands, then turned back to sit down on the couch again. He took a sip and made an appreciative noise as the liquid slid down his throat.

When, exactly, had the man had become a connoisseur of fine spirits, able to appreciate the subtle wood-soaked bouquet of an aged brandy? So much of the man was still a mystery to him.

The blonde downed the whole glass in one long gulp. Roy actually felt himself twitch.

Ed looked up at him expectantly.

“So, small talk,” he said, throwing his arm over the back of the couch again. “Let's get at it.”

Ed looked at Roy in silence, and Roy looked back, a lightness bubbling up in his chest as a smile caught on his face. He moved to sit next to the other man, unable to hold back a laugh.

Sometimes, living and working among politicians and socialites, it was easy to forget that sometimes the most charming things people could do were the things they did completely on accident.

“Edward Elric, you are extraordinary.”

Ed wrinkled his brow, surprised.

“Well, yeah, 'course I am. But I didn't do anything particularly amazing just then, did I?”

“Not anything unusual, no,” replied Roy, and sat back down in his armchair. “So, small talk.”

*

The restaurant was probably nicer than either Roy or Ed had strictly dressed for. Significantly out-dressing one’s date was a major faux pas, so he had opted to leave the suit jacket behind in favor of his military trench over a white button-up shirt. Edward, of course, didn't seem to notice being under-dressed at all – but then, of course he wouldn't.

Roy didn’t mind, either. He very much liked the way his date had dressed. He would like getting to take the man out of it even more.

“Wo-ow, this place is even ritzier than I thought,” Edward said, leaning back in his chair so that the back two legs supported all its weight. He tapped the table with his silver fork. His eyes roved across the ceiling, painted with images from the legend of the Seven Sisters in an excellent mimicry of the Xingian ink-brush style. “The hell'd you have to do to get a reservation here for the same day you called?” he asked, sounding suitably impressed.

“Trade secret,” Roy said, taking a sip of his wine.

“You've fucked the hostess, haven't you,” Ed said.

“That would be telling, wouldn't it?”

Ed snorted. “Well, I guess I'm not surprised. I'd almost be more surprised if you hadn't.”

Roy raised an eyebrow.

“Just how many women do you think I've been with, Fullmetal?” he asked, before he could stop himself. “Sorry. I mean, Edward.” The blonde chose to ignore that last part.

“To listen to headquarters talk, you'd think it was half the women in the city,” Ed drawled, and let the front two legs of his chair slam back onto the floor. A few other diners looked over at the noise, but at least his seat was stable on the floor again.

“With all the damage control I've been doing for you over the years, I don't know where I would have found the time,” Roy said, silkily. The younger man twitched.

“You calling me out of control?” he asked. The timely arrival of the waiter saved Roy from having to reply immediately: she set down a plate in front of Roy and three in front of Ed.

“No,” he said, once the woman had left, “I'm not calling you out of control. I am calling you belligerent, though.” Roy swirled his wine around in its glass and watched his date intently. “Why are you being so aggressive this evening?” he asked. Ed flinched.

“What d’you mean, aggressive? I'm not being aggressive,” he snarled, and shoveled another mess of drunken noodles into his mouth.

Roy let out a deep breath and began to toy with his seared tuna.

“Yes you are, Ed. Listen to yourself. You have taken almost everything I have said since you came in my door as an attack, and responded the same way.” He paused, watching Edward hunch over his side of the table. “What are you trying to prove?” Roy had a fair idea, but there was always the possibility that he was wrong. Even if he wasn't, the key would be getting Ed himself to admit it.

“Not tryin’ to prove anything,” he said, taking another huge bite. 

“I see. This is still about our previous activities, isn't it?”

Edward choked on his noodles, which Roy took to be as good as an answer.

“I don't see how this will ever be anything but uncomfortable for you if you are still ashamed of what we're doing.”

“Not ashamed,” the other man muttered.

“Oh, I'm sorry, my mistake. You're just looking for a fight with me for no particular reason,” Roy said, leaning forward to put an elbow on the table.

“Well, yeah. That's what _you're_ always doing.”

If Roy could have leapt over to the other side of the table and calmly strangled the younger man without starting a scene then by god he would have. He determinedly kept his cool.

“I think I understand what's going on here, Edward, and if it is what I think it is, then I would like to get it out of the way once and for all. Several things.” He held up a finger to illustrate. “First, you and I both know that you are a very aggressive person, and a dominant one. You're strong and proud of it. Now, on the other hand, you get turned on by having all that strength and power taken away, by being put in a situation where you're completely helpless.”

Ed's eyes went round and wide and he froze in place with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. Roy plunged onward before the other could respond.

“These two images of yourself don't mesh well – at least, they don't for you. You're still afraid I'll think that you want to be submissive to me in day to day life. Believe me, I am under no such impression,” he said with a dry chuckle. “Second.” He held up another finger. “You're afraid that you might actually _want_ to be submissive to me in the normal world, and you don't like that. That scares you. Thirdly, you like even less the idea of having to depend on anyone but yourself for something you want. So, you're picking fights with me, like a dog trying to prove he's alpha male. How close am I?”

Ed opened his mouth like he expected something to come out, but nothing did. Roy took a bite of his own food. After a dragging silence, Edward managed to speak.

“...How did you know all of that?”

“Careful observation followed by analysis,” Roy replied. “You're a man of science, I'm sure you understand. I'd like to add a few things, though, in hopes that maybe they'll make some of this easier for you to swallow: what you like in bed – or on the couch, or the floor, or wherever else you're engaging in play,” he added, savoring the blush that had spread across Ed's face, “has nothing to do with the person you are outside of the bedroom. It's all a fantasy. You shouldn't worry about what it means: the only thing being tied up in the bedroom says about you is that you like being tied up in the bedroom. Are we clear there?”

The blonde just stared.

“Are you hearing what I'm saying? Am I talking to a wall?”

“I hear you,” Ed replied, and to Roy's relief he didn't sound like he was going to start yelling. A good start.

“Good. As for my last point – well, all I can say is that it's not so bad to need someone else for something every so often. You need your friend Miss Rockbell to fix your automail when it gets broken. You need conductors to run the trains you use to get from place to place. You need your brother to properly function in society. Don't bother denying it, you know it's true,” Roy added, pleasantly. “And by definition, you always need someone else for sex. This isn't terribly different.”

He didn't think he had ever seen Edward speechless for such an extended period.

“Now, the real question is what to do about it. What do you think?”

The blonde's shoulders sunk, like the air had been let out of him. “I don't know,” said Edward, quietly. “I'm just – it’s – yeah. Sorry I've been such a dick.”

“Apology accepted.”

“Dunno why you put up with it.”

“Oh I don't know, Edward. You have your charms,” Roy said, directing a smile at the other man. “And thankfully, I think I have an idea as to what would help.”

Ed didn't seem convinced.

“Yeah?”

“Well, to begin with...” Roy took a deep breath, gathering his own willpower. “Would it be helpful to know that there is no part of me that even wants you to submit to me in real life? Not here, or in the office, or anywhere else.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Roy saw the waitress scurry away from the table looking mortified, which amused him but hardly bothered him.

“Part of the reason that I find this arrangement to be so appealing is because you are so aggressive and stubborn, such a willful person. I would appreciate it if you didn't repeat this or throw it back in my face, but you're much stronger than I am, one of the strongest people I've ever met.” Roy felt sure that his face betrayed more than he had any interest in showing. It occurred to him that perhaps he shouldn't have asked for that third glass of wine. “Don't let it go to your head. In any case,” he continued, trying to school his expression back to careful blankness, “the whole thing is so very arousing because I'm bending such a strong person to my will, and that makes me feel powerful. You hit on it before, but I’ll say it again: that is something I need, at least as much as you need to feel that pain. Your whims determine what I do. It is, in the end, the submissive person who truly has all the power.”

He paused to take a breath.

“In short, Ed” –- the other man looked like he was about to interrupt with fury, and Roy corrected course mid-stream “–- no, in _conclusion,_ I apologize for my poor choice of words –- I don't want you to be someone who squeaks when I say 'hello.' If I were looking for someone shy and dependent, there are thousands of people across Central who I could have chosen. I didn’t.”

He let that resonate for a moment.

“So,” Edward began, slowly, sitting up a bit in his chair. “What do you want from me?” Slow strains of Xingian music drifted around them, accented by the murmur of genteel dinner conversation.

“I want to have a nice meal, and a pleasant conversation, and maybe if we don't tear each other’s throats out, we can do it again on Friday.”

Ed sat and seemed to think about this for a moment.

“Yeah, okay.” A pause. “I think... I'd like that, actually. But, uh –- did you mean what you said, about me being strong, and stuff?” he asked, perched halfway between hopeful and embarrassed.

“I thought I asked you not to repeat that,” Roy said, and finally took a bite of his seared tuna. A bit cold by now, but still well worth the price. “But regardless, yes. And I’d like to add that you really do have an incredible pain tolerance.”

A grin crept across Ed's face like fire across paper.

“I'll keep it just between you and me,” he said, in a way that made it obvious he was lying. “You know, that's about four or five times you've complimented me in the past couple of hours. I must be goin' for some kind of record,” he said, around a cheek-full of steak. His first plate of noodles lay empty in front of him, and he had made quite the dent in his second one. Roy wondered when the younger man had had a chance to eat any of it. “I must be doing something right,” he said, expression bright and sharp and lovely.

“With every word you say, the prospect of ever getting more is drifting even further out of your reach,” the general said, without any bite to it, just to test the waters.

“Don't you bring my height into this,” Ed replied, not sounding too terribly perturbed, much to Roy's relief.

“What, was that too low a blow?” Roy asked, propping his chin up on his folded hands and smirking.

“One more comment and I'm taking back all of the nice things I ever said about you.”

“You've said nice things about me? Why, Edward, I'm touched.”

Ed stabbed his chopsticks in Roy's direction, cutting the air.

“You're a bastard, you know that?”

Roy smiled. “So I've been told.”

*

The rest of the dinner actually went quite well –- well enough that Roy suggested they walk home rather than take the motor-pool car, as March had brought with it a pleasant thaw and the General had missed the outdoors. February had left a brisk edge on the breeze that cut through the warmth of early spring, and the thick smell of storms hung in the air, softening the feel of the city around them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Roy saw Edward shiver and pull his coat in tighter around him.

“Cold?” Roy asked, hands comfortable in his deep pockets.

“Nope,” Ed said, stepping along quite lightly for a man with an automail leg. Roy kept the concern from his voice.

“You’re cold because you're too thin,” the general suggested. He considered offering Edward his coat, but rejected the idea. It would probably just make the blonde angry, and the two of them had fought quite enough that day already. “It's worrisome. You should eat more.” Though the man looked healthier than he had during their first encounter, when Alphonse had asked for Roy's help, a gaunt look lingered on his face.

Edward gave the other an incredulous look.

“You just saw me put away three plates worth of Xingese food. What the hell about that implies 'starving' to you?”

“Nothing,” Roy responded, keeping his eyes forward to the building at the end of the street. “Your brother just indicated that –“

“My brother talks too much,” Edward muttered. “He looks all cute and shit, but it's a lie. You think that, but then he goes off and fuckin' manipulates you and plans your life in fuckin' secret. It's total crap.”

The elder man laughed.

“Regardless,” he said, “you should take care of yourself. You were practically skin and bones not much more than a month ago.” 

“Look at that, Roy Mustang is a worrier. I'll keep an eye on that, _mom_ ,” he said, hunched over, his shoes shuffling along the concrete.

Roy kept smiling, and elected not to respond. Instead, he waited an appropriate length of time, then said: “So, I've been doing some research,” and tried to ignore the small warmth that blossomed in his chest at the way Edward perked up immediately.

“Yeah? I didn't know you still did research,” he said, turning questioning eyes to the other. “Wouldn't figure you had time for it between all your political machinations.” He waved his hands around to emphasize just how complicated –- and probably useless -– he found the general's political tactics. Roy's chuckle felt warm and natural in his throat.

“You forget: I was an alchemist before I was a politician, or even a soldier, Edward,” he said. The blonde's gaze locked on him, calculating.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” he said, still watching. “We've just never really talked about alchemy before.” Edward's voice held a faint edge of something that the general couldn't quite pin down. “But we are now, I guess. What's this research you've been doing?”

Roy could have shaken his own hand for having thought to take out some of his old work again and brush up on it before going out with the younger man.

“Although flame alchemy is my specialty, it’s hardly my only area of interest or expertise. I've explored some other areas in the past. Life alchemy. My best work has led me to some theories about alchemically-induced conception, actually.”

Edward bristled immediately. “Isn't that human transmutation?” he asked, sounding downright hostile again.

Roy put up his hands in a placating gesture.

“Relax, Edward. I meant on animals. And plants as well, though I suppose you wouldn't call that 'conception.'”

Edward still looked suspicious. Roy said “alchemy” and “animals,” but Edward heard “chimeras.”

“Why would you do that? You can make a perfectly good animal with just a male and a female. Put them together for a bit? Bam, babies. No alchemy required.”

Edward's straightforward nature never failed to be refreshing.

“Granted, but what if one female has a particular desired trait, and you want to recreate that trait without the danger of losing the gene in recombination? Maybe you could re-create the mother by copying the cell and making it grow into a new animal. It's like parthenogenesis. Lots of animals do it already.”

“Still sounds like you're trying to create life, and that's dangerous ground, Roy,” said Edward, and it occurred to Roy that he might never have heard Ed say his name before.

The younger man seemed to have relaxed once again now that the conversation had moved back on to familiar turf, and their disagreement felt more academic than anything.

“See, that's not the point. The conception of offspring is just where you start, something we would need to understand how to do in order to take it to the next step. Oh, don't look at me like that, Edward,” Roy said, because the other man's brow furrowed deeper. “If we do it right, maybe we could recombine genes to bring out certain desired traits, or even add in new traits to a zygote or seed. Then, we would allow them to grow naturally, but with the characteristic that we want. There would be no combining adult plants or animals. It wouldn't be painful for the creature at all.”

“Maybe not, but you're talking a new kind of chimera, here. You know I don't like chimeras.”

Roy huffed. The younger man's excess stubbornness and inability to compromise had saved his younger brother from a horrible fate, had probably saved every person in Amestris, but sometimes he wished Ed was a bit less intractable.

“Hear me out, Edward. I don't mean chimeras,” said the flame alchemist, gently. “I mean genetic modification. If we could just figure out what makes a genotype express itself in the way that it does, and which genes correspond to which traits, we could do amazing things. We could make crops more drought-resistant, make animals less prone to diseases, anything we could think of. We could feed a lot of people with this kind of research, and I have quite a head start. In theory, anyway.”

There was no response for a moment: Roy looked over at the other man only to find Ed staring, unblinking, in front of him as his feet carried him automatically forward. After about two minutes of this, the elder finally prompted:

“Edward? Are you alright in there?”

That shook Ed out of his trance like magic.

“Just peachy yeah,” he said, and as he did so, something in his whole manner changed, like he was just barely containing a world of energy inside himself. A smile slid across his face, and when he looked at Roy all he could see was the intense wonder in those golden eyes.

“I'm not so sure about the animals thing, but the plants –- I'm sure that if you got a microscope powerful enough, all the right equipment, a lab full of people...” He paused. “I think you might really be on to something.”

Roy's mouth quirked up, half out of pride and half in shared joy at the sight of Ed's delighted look. He could see a thousand gears cranking in Edward's head, and felt that familiar warmth again.

“Well,” the older man began, “the fact is that I really don't have the time to undertake a major project like that, not if I want to change this country.”

Edward deflated immediately, but nodded anyway.

“Yeah, guess that makes sense,” he said, unable to hide his look of disappointment. A pang of guilt shot through Roy then. “You're busy an' stuff.”

“No, no, it's not what you think. I'm sorry I phrased it that way. What I meant was, I'd like it very much if you took on my old work. It's been getting a bit lonely. I’m sure it would like some company.”

Ed just stared at him, jaw working around something he wanted to say.

“Are you serious?” he asked after a pause, eyes practically shining with awe and a look that ran a hair too close to adoration.

It was funny that Ed thought Roy might consider himself superior to the younger man. He had gotten it the wrong way around. 

“I am. I'd be happy to give you my notes, and help you get started.”

“But... aren't they in your code, and stuff?” he asked. Only then did the general notice that they had reached Victory Square, which he estimated marked half way to his house. The city had passed them by quickly, and Roy found himself reluctant to let the walk end.

Roy shrugged. There were not many people, perhaps, with whom he would have shared his precious research. Best not to make too much of that so early in the game.

“I'll give you that, too, if you don't mind reading about all of the women I've ever dated,” he told the other man, a faint smirk cocked on his lips, tone teasing.

Edward screwed his whole face up in what Roy hoped wasn’t surprise or disgust, but probably was.

“You crazy bastard, you made your code up out of -–? You know what, nevermind, I don't wanna talk about it any more than I have to. You're weird as shit, you know that?” Ed's voice carried across the whole square: a startled pigeon took off from its roost on the central statue. “But, uh,” he said, restraining his natural volume again, “you sure about that? I mean, isn't your code sacred or something?”

Roy made a thoughtful noise, listening to their footsteps tap across the concrete.

“I suppose under normal circumstances it would be… But I can't do it myself, and I can't think of a better man for the job,” he said, and felt a surge of protectiveness mixed with delight when the man blushed painfully red. “Are you normally this uncomfortable with compliments? I thought you loved it when people talk about you.”

“Well, yeah, usually, it's just that I don't get many from you and shut _up,_ Mustang!”

“I hadn't said anything,” Roy said, because he hadn't, even if the other man could probably see every moment of his thoughts on his face.

“You were smirking,” Ed muttered, thus correcting the older man's misconception. Edward had never been good at reading people.

“No, I was smiling,” Roy said, with a distinct amusement. “It's something people do when they're happy. You should try it sometime.”

“...Smug bastard,” the other said after a moment. The way he said it this time sounded almost fond, like a term of endearment. Unconventional, but Roy was probably going to have to get used to it.

He decided that he wasn't going to think about getting used to Edward Elric, or what it meant that he was. Instead, he opened his mouth and let ideas out, ideas that had been bubbling inside him for the better part of fifteen years, ideas that he had never shared with anyone before because was anyone really listening? Biology and chemistry, theory and shapes and symbols passed between them, and Edward listened with that keen intelligence that grew into a manic delight, throwing ideas back at the elder man and turning questions that had been old and stagnant five years ago upside down in the way that only Ed could do. 

Roy's front door startled them out of their conversation much more quickly than he had anticipated

“Oh. I guess we're here, then,” said the younger man, apparently as surprised as Roy.

“I guess we are,” Roy replied, and fumbled around for the keys to his recently repaired lock. He managed to check the murky depths of all of the eight pockets in his navy trenchcoat before touching cold metal in the front left.

Apparently Edward had no patience for such mundane activities. Before Roy could pull out his keys, Ed clapped his hands and stepped towards the door.

“Edward...” Roy said in warning as he fished them out. They chittered against each other as he flipped through them for the right one, single-handed. Ed gave him a guilty look.

“What? I would have locked it back up again. I transmuted it back to normal last time, didn’t I?”

“You have a lot to learn about basic social etiquette,” Roy returned with some amusement.

Ed flashed the older man a grin as he unlocked the door properly, with the items that had been created for that purpose.

“Nah,” the blonde replied, as the elder stepped into his wood-paneled entryway. “I know all the rules and shit. I just decide to ignore them sometimes,” he said, sauntering in behind.

“Of course you do,” Roy said, quite resigned to it by this point. “On another topic, I'm sorry: I'm afraid I didn't quite realize we were en route to my house. I had intended to walk you by yours first.” He moved inward, and hung his coat on the stand by the door.

Ed snorted. “Like I need escorting anywhere, Mustang.”

“Of course not, but it prolongs the time we spend in each other’s company without crossing any boundaries. Again, that is basic social etiquette,” the general replied, a twitch to his mouth betraying his amusement.

“What the fuck ever, I can take care of myself,” the blonde said, stripping out of his own long jacket and letting it fall to the floor as he flopped down in front of the unlit but pre-laid fireplace. He gave Roy an expectant look.

“Please, make yourself at home,” Roy said, dryly, as he pulled a glove out of his pocket, put it on, and snapped. A fire burst into life, dancing over dry wood, and Ed made a pleased noise as he scooted closer to the flame.

“I can call the motor pool, if you like. They still have drivers available until about midnight on weeknights,” Roy offered. He took one look at the couch, then at the man who had taken over his carpet. Instead of using his furniture like an adult, he walked over to Edward and sat right down next to him.

Ed gave him an odd look, automail arm thrown over one raised knee as Roy crossed his legs in front of him. The other man kept staring in silence, until Roy just had to ask:

“...What? What are you giving me that look for?”

The edges of Ed's mouth crooked up, just enough.

“I just didn't figure you for a floor-sitting kind of guy,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “Or a crosslegged kind of guy.”

Normally, perhaps not, but tonight was a special occasion.

“The fire is warm,” Roy said with a shrug. “I like the heat. I've been known to sit closer to it once in a while, on a chilly day.”

Ed didn't have anything to say to that, evidently: he turned to face the fire, eyes closing in evident pleasure. Roy watched the man's shadow, flickering in the firelight. As the silence dragged on he became painfully aware of the awkwardness between them, born from unexamined expectations.

He didn't even know what he himself had wanted from the evening, and had even less of an idea what Edward had been expecting when he accepted the older man's suave and yet somehow incompetent offer. But when in doubt –- at least on a date –- Roy kept to a policy of erring on the side of chivalry.

“You didn't answer me earlier. Shall I call you a ride?” he asked, quietly, so as not to break the still of the air.

Ed threw him a look that he couldn't read.

“You kickin' me out?”

“Well, I thought, since it was a first date” –- the word “date” seemed comically underdescriptive for the actuality of the evening -– “that I would play the gentleman for -– mmph!” he said, articulately, because Edward's lips had just come forward and smothered his own. For a beat it hung awkwardly between them, caught on Roy's surprise, but once his brain had caught up with the rest of him he relaxed into it, bringing up his hand to cup the younger man's cheek.

Slowly –- so slowly, there was no rush –- Roy tilted his head to the side and opened his mouth just a hair, just a fraction, just enough that when he drew his tongue across Ed's bottom lip, the man pulled in a sharp breath through his nose.

A pause –- then, the blonde man opened his mouth and carefully, hesitatingly, did the same. Warmth grew in Roy's chest, steady and strengthening, and he moved his unoccupied hand to thread through the other man's hair before he opened his mouth properly. 

Their tongues met in Ed's mouth as their lips moved against each other, Roy guiding, Edward following, slowly gaining strength as he grew more comfortable, more confident. He flicked the tip of his tongue against Roy's and the older man groaned, finally letting his eyes fall shut.

The best thing about Edward Elric, Roy thought as he pulled Ed's bottom lip into his mouth and nipped at it, was how quickly he learned new things. Well, maybe the second-best thing, he corrected as his teeth and tongue drew another deep moan out of the other man's throat. The sound kindled desire in earnest, sparking need low in his stomach.

Roy ghosted his fingers down Ed's neck, remembering the response it had garnered last time. He wasn't disappointed -– Edward leaned in to the touch and made another one of those noises that hit Roy with an almost physical force, tearing a groan out of his own throat. He pushed forward, bracing Edward with his hands as he maneuvered the other man down onto his back –- their bodies aligned with each other, magnetized, with Roy on top so their mouths, their bodies, their _everything_ met and hummed like live wires.

Edward arched up, rocking himself against Roy – a hardness pressed up against his leg, undeniable. The realization of just how much this had affected the younger man made Roy groan, the thought setting his body in motion, hips pressing together in an artless grind of heat to heat, pleasure striking out from the point of contact and lighting him up all over.

And then –- _what?_ -– Ed pushed him up, away, and he felt their lips part with a disappointment that might have manifested itself in a frown if he hadn't felt lightheaded and a bit stupid. He thought he might be smiling.

Then, his gaze met the other man's properly: Edward's eyes caught the red-gold of the smoldering fire, and he stared at Roy with a look that couldn't be described as anything but predatory.

Roy's dominating instincts twinged, and an aggressive want coursed through him: he wanted to take a man who could look at him like a wolf and force him down on his knees. He wanted to hear pleas, cries, whimpers, begging words from a mouth with such a dangerous smile. But Roy Mustang was nothing if not a patient man. He could wait.

“Edward?” he asked, surprised at how his voice cracked on the name.

“Sorry, I...” Ed began, panting. “Sorry. Breathing now.” He paused, heat low in his gaze. “Shit, I had no idea...” Roy's mouth cut upwards into a satisfied smirk. “No idea it could be like that.”

“You should watch what you say. It's going to go to my head.”

Ed gave a short laugh.

“Yeah, and we wouldn’t want that. You're smug enough already without me helping.”

“Guilty as charged,” he said, leaning back down to press his lips to Ed's hammering pulse. “You have quite the talented tongue yourself, you know,” he said against golden skin. With discipline worthy of an epic hero, he avoided the urge to bite down and really give the man something to moan about. Instead, he kissed upward, along the column of Ed’s perfect neck.

Roy could hear Ed's breaths turn into pants again: he considered relenting, for just a moment, long enough that the other man could calm himself some. He paused right at the join of Ed's jaw, and in that moment heard:

“You know, you were really hot earlier, when you were talking about your research,” he said, running an automail hand up Roy's back, the other clenched at his collar.

Roy froze, and hid laugh came out in a sudden burst. “I might have known you had an alchemy kink,” he said and pulled away to see Ed's face properly. The man looked slightly put out, and Roy ran a hand through blonde hair, soothing, unable to keep the relentless upward curve of his mouth under control.

“Are you making fun of me?” he asked, frowning.

“No, no, not at all. Not even remotely,” Roy replied. “It's very you. It's not at all a bad thing. I was just – surprised, that's all. An alchemy kink,” he said, smiling still.

“I dunno about kink,” said Edward, cheeks dusting to pink. “I just think it's really attractive when people sound smart. That's all.”

Roy wasn't sure he'd ever felt so blindsided so many times in one evening. Like everything else about the man, conversation with Edward Elric was an unpredictable, wild thing. Earlier in the evening, the general had been the focus of Ed's irritation and fury: now, he found himself on the receiving end of one of the best compliments in recent memory.

Two hours ago, it had been inconceivable that the younger alchemist would ever truly respect Roy in the area of his most prodigious talent: he had heard hundreds of snipes over the years, from competitors and especially from Edward himself, which all more or less came out to “one-trick pony.” This was not fair or true, but nevertheless Roy knew he fell far short in comparison to Edward's natural genius. The general knew a lot of talented alchemists, and counted himself among them. He did not call someone a genius easily –- nor would he ever say it in Edward's hearing -– but he had seen the edges of the younger man's frightening brilliance and knew what that diamond-sharp mind could accomplish. Genius was the only word for it.

“You know, I believe that's the first time you've ever complimented me,” Roy said, because it was. He lowered himself down to Edward's neck again and breathed in the scent for just a moment, just that one, then dragged his teeth lightly across the corded muscle at the junction of Ed's neck and shoulder. The man shuddered in a breath.

“Maybe I should -–” A thick noise from deep in the blonde's chest interrupted his sentence as Roy bit down hard. “Maybe I should -– uh -– do that more often. Fuck,” he moaned, letting his head fall to the side as the older man worked at the spot, tongue and lips assuaging the pain he had caused.

“Maybe you should,” Roy said. He drifted one hand down between the other's legs, pressing a hard palm into what he found there, and the proud man whimpered. “So,” he purred, licking a trail up the side of Ed's neck until he reached the ear, swiping his tongue across the delicate shell, “are you ready for something a bit more... challenging?” He sank his teeth into the man's earlobe, not quite hard enough to draw blood. Certain authority slipped over his voice, and excitement curled through him. “Tell me what it is you want,” he said, words rumbling up through his chest and straight into Ed's ear.

The man shivered, closed his eyes –- but there was no answer. After a moment, he opened them again.

“You know what I want?” Ed asked, the look on his face unreadable.

“What's that?” Roy asked, body thrilling to the words.

“Can we...” he said on a breath, “have _not_ that tonight?” he asked, and the older man saw a flash of fear on the other's face, replaced almost as quickly with a small scowl.

Roy blinked, and frowned.

“You mean... not sex?” he asked, idea so foreign as to almost have no meaning.

“No, I mean... I don't wanna get tied up,” said Edward, watching the other with wary eyes. “Is that... cool?”

His brain could regain enough coherence to say: “Of course we don't have to,” because he knew that it was the right answer. “But can I ask why?”

“Do I need a reason all the time? I just don't wanna, is that good enough or isn't it?” Ed snapped. He looked for a moment like he might push Roy off of him and stand up, but kept himself still. Roy pulled back and gave the other man a smile to cover his confusion.

“Of course. That's fine. We'll do whatever you're comfortable with,” Roy said, trying not to let anything through in his voice.

Ed rolled his eyes.

“It's not about what I'm comfortable with. It's about what I want tonight. Am I bein' clear enough for you?” He stated the last part more than asked. Then, his face smoothed, and his mouth turned up wickedly.

“Trust me when I say, when that's what I want, you will know.” This time, Edward's words were a purr as he reached up to thread his fingers through Roy's hair.

“I like the way that sounds,” Roy said, holding perfectly still as he waited to see what the other man was going to do.

Without warning, the general's back hit the carpet with the blonde man's body pressed onto his own, his weight and the lips on Roy's neck pinning him there as surely as chains. Edward sucked at the pulse he found there, moving down to just inside the collar of Roy's shirt, and nipped gently –- Roy's skin began a slow burn that stayed there even as Roy's mouth trailed down to the hollow above his collarbone. Ed worked hard at the spot, hard enough to sting, and Roy groaned under the attention.

“Maybe, gentler,” the man said as his eyes fell closed, voice husky and not his own. “You're going to, mm, leave a mark.”

“Don't care,” Ed growled into the general's other shoulder, then bit down on it too. Roy pulled in a breath so sharp it caught him off-guard, and let his eyes fall shut.

Slowly, tantalizing, Ed worked the second button on the older man's shirt free, even as his mouth continued doing wonderful things to the bend of Roy’s neck. The blonde drew the tip of his nose up the pulsing artery, past the hinge of his jaw, and flicked a tongue out experimentally over the shell of the other man's ear. Roy gave an encouraging moan that turned throaty when a dexterous hand found its way to the hardness in the front of his pants and rubbed it, traced it through the cloth -–

–- and then disappeared suddenly as the hot weight disappeared from above him. Roy was sure that the tiny bereft noise he heard hadn't been his own.

He opened his eyes to see Ed standing above him, glowing in the firelight and grinning like the devil himself.

“Right. Well, thanks! I've had a great time,” he practically chirped, and Roy felt a different kind of slow burn -– one of horrified realization.

“What? You're leaving?” he asked, breath still coming hard as his mind reeled, trying to keep up.

“That's right,” Ed said, looking as smug as Roy had ever seen him. “Figured you could use a lesson or two yourself, on how it fucking feels to be left like that.”

Roy was in control. He was in complete control. He could have cried.

He stayed still for just a moment -– just long enough to collect himself –- then stood, slowly.

“If you feel you must,” Roy said, choked, like he was deeply in pain. “I'm not sure that's necessary, but if you insist.” His erection began to ache preemptively at the realization that it wouldn't be getting any more relief than the palm of Roy's own hand tonight, or for the next several nights. “Shall I call you a cab?” he ground out.

“Nope, I'll walk, thanks,” he said, altogether too cheerfully, and Roy valiantly resisted the impulse to take control, to make Ed change his goddamn mind. Edward walked over to the entryway and put a hand on the doorknob, standing there for just a moment. “Now, let's see how long you can go without jerking off, Mr. Self-Discipline,” he said, then took off into the street with a grin of victory.

Roy could have set the goddamn door on fire. He didn't, to his credit: but as he slammed said door shut he did curse fluently and repeatedly, even constantly, in a stream of every obscene word and gesture he’d ever learned.

He most decidedly did not touch himself that night, alone in his room, imagining Edward spread out beneath him, or muffle a cry with his own hand when he came.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not-BDSM porn is also good porn!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porn ahoy!
> 
> This chapter is a little bit shorter than the others and the next might be a little truncated as well, as I split one long chapter into two so I'd only have one sex scene in each. I feel like they lose their effect a bit when squished together!
> 
> Sorry for the late. I have some original fiction deadlines that are scaring me shitless.
> 
> Now might be a good time to warn you that there will actually be some serious material in upcoming chapters, so you don't get completely blindsided by it.
> 
> Please, enjoy!

Chapter 5

*

The General trailed a plume of foul smoke behind him everywhere he went the next day, obvious enough that it infected his subordinates with a quiet terror – all except for Major Hawkeye, who never let on that anything you could throw at her had bothered her in any way until that moment when she pulled a gun on you. Roy distantly hoped that she hadn't reached that point yet. He sure as hell didn't want to make a bad day worse.

Regardless of what he wanted, the day had other plans: as the afternoon dragged on, Edward showed up to his office in those leather pants, painfully tight and accenting every muscle he had. An apologetic-looking Alphonse trailed behind him, giving Roy meaningful looks.

“You realize that I'm not actually your liaison,” Roy said with a raised eyebrow as Ed flopped down on the couch in his office with that same cheeky, knowing grin from the night before. “I fail to see why you keep showing up in my office. We do, actually, do work on occasion, you know.” 

Alphonse sat down next to his brother, back straight and hands folded in his lap. Why couldn't Roy have gone for the saner brother? Edward was ten times more of a handful and not nearly so clever. Or else, Ed was too smart by half. Roy had trouble deciding.

The way Ed sat, sprawled over the couch with his knees flung apart, made certain parts of his anatomy eminently visible. While Roy wouldn't say the pants left nothing at all to the imagination, they certainly made imagining much easier, and in fact quite unavoidable.

“Yeah, we know,” Ed said, and it took Roy far longer than it strictly should have to realize that Edward's pants had walked in to have a conversation, not just to be stared at. The man struggled to remember what said conversation had been about. “But you're the one who suggests our assignments, so we thought it might be good to come in and bother you a little bit before gettin' to work.”

“What brother means to say, though he's very bad at saying it, was thank you,” Alphonse interjected with a glare at the aforementioned individual. Ed seemed entirely unaffected. “We were given our latest assignment just now and it seemed like – well, we suspected that you might have had something to do with it. So, thank you very much,” he said, with a tiny bow that suddenly reminded Roy very much of the suit of armor.

“I don't know what you mean,” the general replied, smiling on the inside. Despite his mood, Roy had still made the extra time and effort to saunter into the civilian liaison office and make some strongly-worded suggestions. At least one of the two wasn't an ungrateful little bastard. 

Ed raised an eyebrow.

“Really. Wow, it's a real coincidence then that we got assigned to organize and catalog the extensive notes and impressive book collection of the recently deceased Choking Vine alchemist for the Central Library archives. With, you know, his specialty in plant alchemy and all.”

“I am perfectly aware of the late Colonel Hartford's specialty, thank you, Edward. And your assignment is hardly unusual. He donated his collection to the library in his will, but it's been sitting around for months but nobody has gotten around to it and – I'm sorry, Alphonse, could you excuse us for just a few minutes?” Roy asked, interrupting himself, because Edward was staring at him in a way that was entirely distracting. There were some things that needed to be dealt with immediately.

Al was on his feet faster than any human should be able to move, red to the tips of his ears.

“Oh – uh – yes – of course, I'll – I'll just meet you at the collection, Brother, whenever you're done. Talking,” he said, and shot out the door. Roy had just enough time to hear the boy's squeaked apology to the office staff before the door slammed shut, leaving him alone with an entirely unapologetic Edward Elric.

*

Alphonse slammed General Mustang's office door behind him in a futile attempt to put enough physical objects between himself, his brother, and whatever his brother was about to be doing in the _entirely inappropriate_ context of the office that he wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

He was going to go to the lounge, that was it. He was going to go make himself a cup of tea to calm himself, and then he could get down to work.

He gave a knock to the door before entering, just to let anyone know he was coming in, but entered before waiting for an answer. When he did, he saw Major Hawkeye in front of the stove, her back to him.

“Hello, Major,” he said, closing the door quietly. She turned to him and gave him a smile. 

“Oh, hello, Alphonse. Always nice to see you. What brings you to the office today?”

“Brother and I just came by to talk to the General about one of our assignments. I wanted a cup of tea, so I popped in to make myself one.” He took a few steps forward and peered over Hawkeye's shoulder. The gas stove flamed beneath a difficult-looking contraption, like two fat Erlenmeyer flasks on top of each other, with a thick, muddy liquid below.

“Are you doing some kind of experiment?” he asked, eyebrows drawing downwards in confusion. Al had never seen anything that looked quite like that before.

Hawkeye gave a quiet laugh.

“No, I'm making coffee,” she said, gesturing to the set of mugs on the counter top and the bag of coffee beans next to them. “And where is Edward, then?”

“I had no idea it was so complicated,” he said, avoiding her question. He looked at the contraption in wonder and a bit of confusion. “But, um, shouldn't one of the lower-ranking officers be making the coffee?”

“It is a bit complicated, isn't it? And I suppose that normally, that duty would fall to the lower ranks. I just don't like trusting anyone else with my coffee. Nobody seems to make it right.”

Al smiled and nodded. He certainly understood that.

“You know,” he began, as he filled the pot with water and put it on the stove next to her coffee brewer, “I know a fantastic mechanic who loves toying around with this stuff. I bet that Winry would be thrilled to invent some kind of less complicated, automatic coffee machine for you. It would probably only take her a few days of messing around before she came up with something.”

Major Hawkeye gave him a curious look.

“She could probably make a small fortune off of that.”

“Probably, yes,” he said, smiling at the thought. “She's very good.”

“I have no doubt. She made your brother's arm, after all.” She paused and looked around. “Speaking of your brother, where is he? I don't think you ever said.”

Alphonse flushed again, unsure how much he should say.

“Um,” he said, staring at the teapot and willing it to boil more quickly.

She gave him a sidelong glance and a look of amusement.

“Is he in General Mustang's office?” she asked, finally taking the contraption off of the stove and pouring the liquid into the two mugs next to her.

“...What would make you think that?”

“Please, Alphonse. You don't give me enough credit. I've known General Mustang very well for a number of years – a bit too well, actually. Do you think that anything goes on in that ridiculous man's life that I don't know about?”

Al laughed, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and a bit relieved that he didn't have to carry this secret alone.

“Fair enough,” he said. “But in that case, can I suggest that you, um, not go into the General's office anytime soon?”

“Note taken,” Riza Hawkeye said with a small laugh, and took a sip of her coffee.

*

The air between Roy and the young man on his couch pulsed with tension, a heavy electricity. He could hardly believe that Edward had the gall to just waltz in to Roy's office after what he had done, could hardly believe his luck.

“Why are you here?” the general asked, voice booming across the space. He stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and pulled out the person that he needed to be – the person that Edward needed him to be.

“I –”

“Is there something you wanted?” he asked, cutting off the man's reply. Roy strode around his desk and covered the distance between the two of them in an instant. An uncertainty crept in on the edges of Fullmetal's smile: he looked just a bit less cocky, and Roy felt like the most powerful man in the world, with such a gorgeous creature right in the palm of his hand.

For once in his life, Edward didn't say anything at all, like he didn't know how to respond.

“Am I to assume by your state of dress and your... behavior, that you just couldn't wait until the next time we would be alone together, and so decided to harass me at my office?”

“You can go to hell, General. You know you like it,” he said, and made no move to leave as Roy stepped closer to loom over his seated form. He looked, in fact, quite frozen in place.

Roy bent over the other man, putting his hands on the back of the couch to either side of Edward's head, trapping him there.

He leaned in so that his lips skated the edge of the blonde's ear.

“I'm still quite angry at you, Fullmetal,” he growled, feeling the rush of adrenaline as Ed's wide eyes squeezed shut, for just a second. The general bit down on the ear, eliciting the same gasp that he remembered, the noise pumping a heady feeling all through him. The general took one hand off the back of the couch to trail gloved fingers down Ed's neck, gratified when he felt the younger man shiver.

“Come over to my desk, Fullmetal,” Roy said silkily, moving his hand from Ed's shoulder to his cheek. He struck it with the flat of his hand,. The blow slammed Ed's face to the side, and when he turned back Roy could see a red mark there and a hunger in his gaze.

“W-why should I?” Ed asked, and looked Roy in the eyes. Fullmetal was doing his best to make himself seem unaffected, composed, powerful. Roy could see the struggle there as the man's fundamental instincts warred with each other.

“I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you there like a little child if you like. It's all the same to me,” he said, reveling in the thought of it, and straightened up again. Edward deliberated for a moment as Roy stepped away, and then seemed to decide to follow Roy's orders because he stood up, eyes cast down to the floor in embarrassment.

“Good. A wise choice, Fullmetal,” he said, and strode over to his desk. He heard Edward's footsteps tapping behind him, and sat down on his high-backed chair. When he spun it to face the other man, he saw on that beautiful face the edges of the excitement, anticipation, that the younger man was clearly trying to suppress.

“You're going to make up for last night,” Roy said, voice a growl. He leaned back in his chair. “Suck my cock. You're going to get me off now, and then we'll talk about your punishment.” Ed took in a sharp breath.

“But... the door's not locked,” he said, voice small. “Major Hawkeye could come –”

“Yes, she could,” Roy said, leaning sideways to put an elbow on his desk and resting his cheek on his fist. “Get down. The faster I come in your mouth, the faster we get to what you want. You will be punished. But believe me,” he continued, low and meaningful, “it's not all going to be the kind of punishment you will enjoy.”

The man let out a weak noise and gave a nervous look over to the door, but stepped forward anyway. Roy spread his knees to allow the other to stand between them. Then Ed knelt in front of him and Roy began to harden immediately, because he didn't think he was going to get tired of this sight, this feeling, not ever. How could he? The Fullmetal Alchemist, on his knees on the orders of Roy Mustang: he had waited a lifetime for this kind of power. He groaned as Ed leaned forward and carefully mouthed his cock through the cloth of his uniform pants. Ed's breathing began to quicken but Roy almost didn't hear it over the sound of his own breath, heavy in his ears.

He could see that Edward's pants were getting tighter already, before he had even been touched. The general _made_ the younger man want him, and if that wasn't a victory, he didn't know what was. No-one made Fullmetal do anything – no-one but Roy.

Ed seemed to take encouragement from the breathy noise the older man made: he opened the button and zipper with a dexterity and sureness that he hadn't displayed the last time. Ed carefully worked Roy's cock out of his boxers, then closed his hand around it and gave it a long, hard stroke that made the older man's breath catch. The way Ed focused on what he saw before him, golden eyes sharp like every bit of the man's intense, brilliant mind was dedicated to Roy in that moment, made the whole thing that much sweeter.

Then, the blonde head bobbed forward and he swallowed Roy down with the same enthusiasm that characterized everything he did. The general groaned, and Ed's eyes flashed up, catching the other man's gaze with that same focused stare.

“Yes,” Roy growled as Ed pulled his mouth back up the length of his cock. “That's it, Fullmetal. Take it.” Ed licked the tip of Roy's cock, running the broad part of his tongue along it, then swirled it around the head and licked down the shaft in short, hard strokes before going back up again, the trail of it hot behind his touch.

Ed put his lips on the tip, then took it in, sliding his mouth down the shaft again with a delicious wet noise. Roy let himself stretch back into his chair, thrusting into that heat shallowly, carefully, trying not to choke the younger man but goddammit, trying not to move would be a futile effort. Then, Ed swallowed around him, and Roy moaned deep, muscles cording in his neck as he pressed himself back against the chair. He bucked up into Ed's mouth, couldn't help it, couldn't even manage to feel guilty when the younger man choked and pulled away because through the lashes of his half-lidded eyes, Roy could see Ed watching his every move, eyes dark.

It didn't take long for the blonde to go back down again and settle into a rhythm, one hand steadying the base of Roy's cock and the other massaging his balls through the crotch of his uniform pants, the sensation of the cloth a rough counterpoint to the liquid-smooth motion of Ed's mouth. The older man closed his eyes, trying to repress those little half-noises he felt himself making, and fisted his hand in Ed's hair to yank backwards. Fullmetal groaned, sliding his eyes shut, making vibrations that Roy could feel through his whole body, that tightened every muscle and sharpened his breath.

As Ed's enthusiastic – and fuck, talented – tongue brought Roy to the edge of sanity, he saw the look on his face turn from deferential to smug.

 _Well, that won't do,_ he thought distantly, somewhere past the amazing sensations that Fullmetal's damned tongue was visiting on him.

He jerked Ed back by his ponytail, up and off, and tried not to hiss at the loss of contact. He replaced Ed's mouth immediately with his own hand, pumping quickly, and smiled inside at the look of confusion on the blonde's face.

“What? But I thought you wanted to –”

“I'm going to come on your face,” Roy growled, half-lidded eyes fixed on it. Edward looked surprised for just a second before the expression turned to one of consternation, of embarrassment. He made a high, needy little noise. Roy's body responded with an intense wave of heat, and he stroked his slick shaft faster, harder, riding the crest of it –

“Please,” Ed said, softly, choking out the word. “Please. Do it. I want you to.”

Roy groaned as the orgasm crashed through him, body throbbing as he jerked up into the air and emptied himself in spurts all over Edward's cheek.

He sat there for a moment in stunned silence until his body had recovered enough that he could see properly. Ed pushed himself up into a standing position, slowly, and moved to wipe away Roy's come with the back of a glove.

“Don't,” the general said, voice harsh. If the image of Edward standing there with Roy's come dripping down his golden face was the last thing the general ever saw, he would die a happy man. “I'm not done with you yet.”

Edward shivered and closed his eyes. His giddy, flushed look made Roy's spent cock throb again.

“You still haven't been punished for your behavior,” Roy said, then opened a desk drawer and pulled out a piece of chalk. Ed eyed the chalk, wary.

Roy just smiled. 

“Are you afraid of this?” he asked, silkily. “Or does it excite you?”

Edward flicked his tongue out to wet his lips, tasting a splash of Roy's come there.

“Both, sir,” the man said, and Roy could hear the truth of it in the tremor of Ed's voice.

“As it should be. Bend over the table, and put your hands down on it.” There was a pause, then Ed took a small step forward, and another. After a moment he bent over, splaying his hands out over the mahogany to support himself, leaving his perfect, leather-clad ass out behind him as he did so. He watched Roy intently, gaze heated and heavy with anticipation.

With the ease of many years of practice, Roy took the chalk and drew a circle – within seconds, wooden manacles formed out of the desk and clasped around Ed's wrists, attaching him completely to the heavy furniture. Fullmetal's chest rose and fell in sharp, short spurts. The general bent over the other man, so his mouth nearly touched the shell of Ed's ear.

“You deserve much, much worse than this,” Roy said, and the hand he drew down the length of Ed's spine pulled shivers behind it. He stood up suddenly and struck a blow on Ed's ass with the side of his hand, to muffle the noise of it – they were still in the office, after all. Edward squeezed his eyes shut and let his mouth fall open, panting. “You left before finishing the job. You left expressly to test the limits of my self control. You are a _brat_ who still, after all this time, can't understand what it means to obey.” The last word rung out through the room. Within seconds, Roy had Ed's pants open and shoved down to his knees.

He made the perfect picture, captured there: blonde hair disheveled, bare ass out for the general's inspection and use, his reddened length jutting out below him and Roy's come still dripping down his face.

Roy let his gloved hand wander over the curve of the other man's ass, appreciating the feel of it for just a moment before letting another blow fly, and another – then more, unrelenting. The man moaned, his dick twitching even as his head fell to hang forward, as if his muscles had gone weak. Roy moved to his thighs: with every blow, Edward's moans intensified, and his breathing began to pitch up into tiny whimpers, each more delightful than the last.

Then, he let a gentle hand stroke the skin, soothing the red marks that his hand had left. He took to one knee for just a moment, just long enough to lay a few open-mouthed kisses along the curve of Fullmetal's ass. Then, he bit down on the tempting flesh, smiling at how the man startled, gasped.

“Mm, I love how much you like that. I love how much you're turned on by this, even though you don't want to be,” he said, giving one last lick to abused skin before standing again. He pulled open a drawer and fished around in it for the one implement he thought he could get away with having at work, the one he had brought with him today – partially in case of need, but mostly just to remind himself of how much power he could wield. He was quite glad he had brought it.

It was a little graphite stick, less then a centimeter thick and about eight inches long all told, with a braided leather handle for convenience of handling. Fullmetal, looking over his shoulder at what the general was doing, actually laughed at the sight of it.

“What, 's that all you got?” the man asked, expression pulling back to a fanged grin. “It's pretty runty, isn't it?”

“Brat,” Roy said, then snapped his tool out to lay a blow on Ed's ass. A sharp yelp and a look of surprise followed. “You know, the smaller the area of contact, the greater the pain,” he said, whipping it out again. This time, the resulting noise sounded less like one of surprise and more like one of need. The muscles in Ed's ass shifted as he tried to rearrange himself, and the general watched, fascinated. He struck another blow. Fullmetal stopped bothering to hold his head up, letting it roll forward as he gave open-mouthed gasps.

“Amazing,” Roy said, soothing that ass with his hand once again, “the kind of pain that you can not only withstand, but enjoy.” Another strike. “But today isn't all pleasure: it's also punishment. I'm going to give you something that you will not enjoy. I don't want to, but your determined disobedience and insubordination have left me no choice.” He let another strike go. Edward moaned, and Roy wished for a moment that he could also be a bystander, able to enjoy the scene from a side where he could properly watch the way Ed's mouth fell open, the way sweat would begin to collect on his forehead, the way his pulse would flutter when he was struck with a sudden blow – 

A familiar, businesslike knock on the door cut through the room, nearly startling Roy out of the scene entirely.

“Major General?” Hawkeye's voice said, drifting through the closed door. Roy immediately throw a hand out over Ed's mouth to muffle those noises. “There's a call for you from General Vossler, sir.”

“Can it wait?” Roy asked, voice calm and businesslike even as he struck the graphite stick heavily onto Ed's ass. He felt the man groan into his hand. If he didn't have perfect control, he would have gotten hard again at that.

“He said it was urgent, sir,” she replied. Roy sighed and straightened, tucking himself into his pants and zipping up the front again. 

“I'll be out in just a moment, Major,” Roy returned, walking around to the other side of the desk and giving Fullmetal a smirk. He bent close, so he could keep his voice low.

“I did say punishment, didn't I?” he murmured, silkily.

“What?!” Ed hissed, his fury clear in every inch of his body. “You can't just leave me like this!” He had kept his voice quiet enough that Major Hawkeye probably hadn't heard, but there was no sense in taking any risks. 

He pulled off the glove from his left hand, and when Ed's mouth opened again in further protest, Roy shoved the cloth in, balling it up so the other man couldn't speak or bite down on intruding fingers. Ed glared at him, every line of his face screaming of desperation.

“I think you'll find that I can,” Roy said, and bent back over the desk to lay a gentle kiss on the skin of Ed's neck. “And if I come back to find you have escaped, I will be very displeased,” he said, voice rumbling with the force of the threat.

Roy could hear the broken sob even through the cloth of his glove.

“I'll be back,” he said, and turned to the front door of his office, straightening his uniform and running a hand through his hair. He opened the door just enough to walk through, but not enough to reveal the wanton display behind him. Apparently he wasn't as perfectly put-together as he had thought, because Major Hawkeye gave him a searching look. Whatever thoughts were going on in her head, she elected not to say anything, to Roy's relief.

“Thank you, Major. Now, where was that call?”

“Right this way, sir,” she said, and he followed her automatically, mind never quite leaving his office or the expression of the man inside it as he left.

*

Roy came back just over thirty minutes later to find Ed still in the same position, with a look that mixed fury and mortification.

“Ah, Fullmetal. I'm pleased that you're still here. I didn't think you'd make it this long.”

Edward's glare burned the distance between them. He didn't even try to say anything around the general's glove.

He walked around his desk to the side that the other man still occupied, and found to his surprise that Ed's cock was still flushed and hard, or else had gotten that way again very quickly once Roy had entered the room. He wasn't sure which thought he liked more.

“Mmm, have you been enjoying yourself?” Roy asked, bending to stroke his bare fingers down Ed's cock. The blonde's whole body shuddered violently: Roy realized with a start that this was the first time he had touched the other man, skin on skin. Actually, it was probably the first time Ed had ever been touched there by skin other than his own: he was a virgin, to the best of Roy's knowledge, and seemed to have little enough experience with the rest of it that he would guess he was Ed's first sexual partner of any kind.

The thought that he was the only person who had ever gotten to see Edward like this, shaking and needy and utterly lovely, turned him on more than he could say.

Ed shook his head vigorously in answer to the general's question.

“No?” Roy asked with a chuckle. “Well, _this_ part of you seems to have liked it.” He closed a hand around Edward's rock-hard base, then stroked it hard to the tip and ran a thumb over the slit as the foreskin slid up and over the head. Ed gave a muffled whimper and tried to thrust into Roy's hand, but the general pulled it away. “Now you know how I felt last night,” he growled, striking Ed's thighs with the back of his hand, tool abandoned on the desk in favor of this more immediate, erotic contact.

“But I'm kind,” he continued, caressing the red mark his blow left behind. “I only have your best interests in mind.” He did the same to Ed's bare ass: struck it, then soothed it. “So, I'm going to let you come.”

He finally reached over to pull the glove in Ed's mouth out by a finger. Ed drew in a heavy breath as the restricting cloth came free.

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” Edward groaned. “Bastard.”

“If that's what you want, then you know what you have to do.” Roy paused, and stretched out his hand to turn Ed's face to the side, towards him. The man didn't struggle, but kept his eyes focused down, anywhere but at Roy. “Look at me,” he said, and Ed did, briefly flicking his tongue out to wet his lips.

Then, he took a deep breath and said, hoarse: “Please, General. Let me come. Make me come.” Those deep golden eyes looked straight into his own, and sparked that feeling of power through him, electrifying every inch of his body. He pulled his hand away from Ed's face, and when he simultaneously hit the man again and pumped a hand on his cock, the blonde cried out.

“Yes, that's it. Make noise for me,” he growled, fisting Fullmetal steadily, in rhythm – then, he stepped around to press his front to Ed's back, grinding his returning erection into the cleft of the younger man's ass. “Moan loud enough that they can hear you outside. You want them to know what we're doing in here, don't you?” he said, and bit down hard on the muscle of Ed's neck. Ed panted, each breath an unmeasured noise. “You stayed hard all this time, waiting to see if they found you like this,” he said, and as his right hand continued its forceful motion, his left snaked its way up to Ed's neck.

“Maybe next time, I'll invite one of them to watch,” he said, and this time when he bit down Edward jerked forward with a hoarse wail, and came hard onto the general's desk. Roy kept pumping, moving, wringing the other man dry as the blonde made smaller and smaller jerks then, finally, stilled.

There was a brief, comfortable silence. Too brief, as it ended up.

“Good god, you're a sadistic bastard,” said Edward, shattering the moment. Roy snorted and stood, then pressed a hand to his earlier transmutation circle: Edward's manacles disappeared back into the mahogany of the desk. Edward stood as well, pulled his pants back up to cover his ass, at least, and rubbed at the red marks his cuffs had left.

“Maybe, but you can't say you didn't like it,” Roy said with a smile, sliding open a desk drawer and pulling out a few clean handkerchiefs. He stepped over to the young man, knelt down by him, and took the cloth to the head of Ed's cock, wiping it gently. Once done, he stood up and took the other cloth to Edward's cheek. The man watched him with wide, golden eyes.

“Yeah, well,” Edward said, flushing a bit and looking down at the ground as he tucked himself into his pants and fixed himself up. He looked anxious, almost frantic to get away. Roy frowned.

“What?” he asked after a moment, furrowing his brow as he cleaned the last bit of his come off of the other man's face. “Is something bothering you?”

“No,” Edward muttered, running a hand over his now-clean cheek and making a face. Roy raised an eyebrow, even as he raised his hand to stroke Edward's care.

“Really? Because from my end, it certainly seems like something is.”

There was a long pause as Edward considered.

“It's just... you're so damned nice after all this shit,” he said. Roy pulled his hand back like he’d been burned.

“Would you rather I wasn’t?” he asked, voice clipped and cool. Ed gave him a startled look.

“What? No! That’s not what I meant at all. It’s just weird,” he said. “You're – I mean, you’re nicer after this sort of shit than you’ve been to me most of the time we’ve known each other, and most of the time we've known each other you haven't been getting off by doing bad shit to me. At least,” he continued, flushing, “not _literally_. It’s weird.”

Roy had to laugh; gave a deep, throaty chuckle, then pulled the other man into a brief embrace and laid a kiss on the top of his blonde head.

“That’s part of the whole thing, Edward. It’s my way of showing you that I do still care. Besides, I enjoy it,” he said, trying to sound matter of fact and not too romantic because frankly Edward wouldn’t appreciate Roy’s talents in that area. “Partially, I do it because it's nice. Partially, it's to remind you that this is all just a game, and that we're just playing roles. You understand?” He stroked the man's hair, unable to resist the impulse for just that moment. 

Ed pushed out of the embrace, cheeks a deep red.

“Yeah, yeah. What I get is that you’re a fuckin sap,” he said, and Roy smiled.

“Maybe.” A pause. His mind worked. “Is that a problem?”

“…You can do whatever you want,” Ed said, staring at the floor.

Roy warmed: that was probably as close as Edward could come to admitting he liked it.

“Alright, I will,” Roy said, and much to his surprise, found himself bending over to kiss the other man on the lips.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are love!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

*

Edward’s leg bounced up and down, tapping his heel on the floor as he lay sprawled out on the couch, his back up to the arm and a book in hand. He gave a loud sigh and shifted around, trying his best to get a bit more comfortable, but his body refused to cooperate. His foot just wouldn’t stop tapping, dammit. The book was fascinating, too: he just couldn’t seem to keep his eyes on the page for the amount of time it would have taken to read a whole sentence.

“Something bothering you, Brother?” Alphonse asked from where he sat at the other end of the Elric library, watching Edward with an indulgent smile.

“No, I’m having a great time,” Ed snapped, flipping around so his feet were on the arm of the couch instead. “Why would you think I wasn’t?”

“You’re being bouncy.”

Ed glared at his little brother. “I am not bouncy. Kids get bouncy. I don’t get bouncy. I’ve just got a lot of extra energy.”

“Extra energy, huh? Did you have a good time in General Mustang’s office earlier, then?” Al asked, and Ed could have sworn that the younger man’s eyes fucking _sparkled,_ even though biologically speaking that shouldn’t be possible.

Ed slammed his book down on his face and groaned into the comforting pages.

“Why do you keep asking these questions?” Ed asked, words muffled by the paper. “Do you _really_ want to know?”

“Of course, Brother,” Al said, the picture of innocence. “I just want to make sure you’re doing okay. I’m just looking out for you.”

“I can look out for myself, Al,” Edward said, and pulled the book off his face again. He slammed it shut and dropped it on the couch cushion as he sat up, because like hell he was going to be able to get back to reading after this.

“Is it wrong for me to want to make sure my big brother’s being treated well by his –”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Alphonse Elric.”

Al laughed, and Edward seriously considered throwing the book at his younger brother’s head. But no, he was an adult now, he reminded himself. A fucking adult. He rolled off of the couch, threw the book down onto the cushions instead, and stomped off towards the library door.

“I’m leaving. Going for a walk,” Edward said, words coming out precisely as he meant them to.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry,” Al said, putting his hands up in a placating gesture. “You know I’m teasing. But honestly, though, Brother,” he said, expression soft and head cocked to the side, “I’m just glad you’re happy.” He paused. Edward turned to face him. “I’m glad you’re being safe, now. You are being safe, aren’t you?” Al asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“GOD, Alphonse!” Ed snapped back, a bit touched even as he wished the floor could swallow him whole. “We’re fine! And just to clear up any misconceptions, we aren’t actually having sex. Or we haven’t yet, anyway.” He paused, fighting embarrassment. After a moment of silence, he continued. “But, um… you really don’t think this is weird? You don’t think I’m horribly fucked up?” he asked, his stomach dropping into his shoes as he did. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

“Well, it is a _little_ weird,” Al said, not sounding at all disturbed. “But not really any weirder than the stuff you usually do.”

Edward took a deep breath and hunched his shoulders, grateful and tired and nervous all at once.

“Sometimes, you know, I wonder if I’m totally fucking nuts. I mean, I don’t even like the guy!” he said, then shook his head at Al’s raised eyebrow. “Okay, maybe I do a little.” The eyebrow didn’t come down. It might even have gone up higher. “Shut _up,_ Al! That isn’t the point.”

“It sounds to me like it’s one of them.”

“I don’t know why I even try,” Edward snapped, realizing with a sinking feeling that his good mood had entirely evaporated. He felt like a jumble of nerves.

“No, no, brother. I’m listening, I promise. And I don’t think you’re crazy,” Al said, looking for a moment like he might get up from his chair. He leaned back in it instead, and continued: “Or at least, if you are, you’re crazy in the same way as a lot of other people!”

Edward’s brain stopped for a moment, because – because –

“What?” his mouth asked as his thoughts struggled to keep up. “You mean – what?”

Alphonse crinkled his forehead and put the front legs of his chair back down on the ground, then turned around in it, putting his elbow over the back.

“Wait, am I… am I telling you something you don’t know?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“I guess. If you keep going, I’ll know for sure,” Ed replied, wary.

Alphonse made his thinking noise, eyebrows pulled down low.

“This stuff you’re doing – it’s not that uncommon. Didn’t you know that?”

Ed swallowed, fighting a warm rush.

“I – no. I didn’t. News to me.”

This time, Al’s eyebrows went up almost to his hairline. He had very expressive eyebrows.

“It’s a _thing._ I mean, it’s got a name, and stuff,” he said, blushing a little bit. “Lieutenant Havoc was telling me about it. That’s how I found out it was, you know, a sex thing. He’s got stories,” he said, and Edward flushed in furious mortification.

“You told _Havoc?_ What the fuck, Al?!” Of all the ways his brother could have betrayed him.

“No no no! I didn’t tell him anything!” Al said, waving his hands back and forth in violent denial. “I asked him about it in general. Tying people up, I mean. He was… disturbingly happy to tell me about it, actually. He seemed to think he was initiating me into manhood or something,” he said with a nervous laugh. “But he also seemed to think that tying your sex partners up – or getting tied up – is perfectly normal.”

Edward felt a flood of relief like a physical force, buoying him up.

“It is?”

“Not everybody does it, of course, and I don’t think many people do it to quite the, um, extent that you and General Mustang did. Do. But that’s not unheard of, either.” He paused, cocking his head. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I can’t believe nobody else has.”

Edward swallowed hard, and put his hand up over his eyes, crumpling it there to keep his face from view. His laugh sounded dry and humorless even to his own ears.

“I thought I was the only one,” he said. “I thought it was just me.” When he took his hand off of his eyes, he looked at his brother to see an expression that might well have been called pity on anyone else. From Al, he preferred to think of it as brotherly concern.

“I’m so sorry, Brother,” Alphonse said, eyes shining in the lamplight. “I would have told you earlier. You’re not a freak, I promise. Well, I mean, you are, but that’s not why.”

A grin broke out over Ed's face, irrepressible. Trust Al to always know what to say.

“Don’t you talk to your older brother like that,” he said, unable to even pretend at anger. “ _You’re_ the freak. How am I a freak?”

“Well, you eat a freakish amount, and you like the General, which is pretty freaky, too, and you’re freakishly short…” Al said, matching his brother’s expression. He leaned back in his chair.

“You have no respect at all for your elders!” Ed shot back. “I should really give it to ya! It’s not fair you’re taller than me, it’s proof there is no God because if there was and the world was _fair_ then I would be taller, goddammit, I’m _older,_ ” Edward said, then turned and stomped out the door, still feeling a bit like a madman.

“If you wish hard enough, maybe someday your dreams will become reality! I believe in you, Brother,” Al said from behind him. Ed hissed, and when he left he had to slam the door because that was what he did when Al teased him, but even that had none of its usual vehemence.

Funny how one little thing could make all the difference in the world.

*

Clothing had always been something of secondary interest to Edward, the stuff you used to cover yourself and to keep from getting frostbite or sunburn or whatever the danger of the day was but not really worth much of his time beyond that. Sure, he liked the flashy look, liked it when people took notice of him, but all told he had never found them terribly important.

Very much without to his surprise, Edward suddenly found that they could be very effective tools for a job, if the job in question was Roy Mustang. He began to carefully take note of what pieces of clothing drew a reaction from the other man, to keep a mental list and use it to his advantage: when Mustang looked at him like that, completely unashamed of his blatant interest, that meant that Ed was winning.

For the next few days after his office adventures, he used different clothes carefully, sparingly: each day was a different test, of shirts or pants or hair or combinations thereof. Combined with the data he had gathered previously, by the fourth day Edward was fairly certain he knew the winning formula.

He wore his hair down that day over a black shirt that could be called a button-up mostly in name – he had left the top three buttons completely unfastened, which also left his neck and a significant portion of his chest open for review. For pants, he chose Roy’s favorite pair of black slacks after discovering that although his leather pants may have been ridiculously titillating for the other man, they were completely impossible to tuck shirttails into. He wore no gloves. He didn’t need to hide anything anymore.

Alphonse gave him a look as they left the house that day, part amusement and part glee.

“Lay off, Alphonse, it’s nice out,” Ed growled in response.

“I didn’t say anything,” Al said, and he continued to not say anything very loudly for the rest of the walk to the office. 

Edward felt strangely self-conscious parading through military headquarters dressed like this. Even though he never caught anybody looking at him weird or anything – well, except for Al, but that was normal – he felt out of place and awkward. What the hell had possessed him to wear this shit?

The feeling dissipated almost immediately upon entering the General’s office, because Roy fixed him with that _look,_ the one that hit him so hard, left him speechless in its wake. He had heard the phrase “undressing with your eyes” before, but he had never quite understood what it had meant. That moment he did: he felt naked then, standing fully clothed in front of the general’s desk, like those eyes had stripped everything away. The man didn’t even seem to care that Alphonse was standing right next to him, and couldn’t possibly have missed Roy’s expression. Ed didn’t dare to look over and see his brother’s response.

Maybe he should have felt uncomfortable, there, with Roy looking at him like he wanted to just slam him up against a wall. Maybe that would have made him awkward and skittish even a week ago. But in the moment, he didn't feel vulnerable at all: he felt powerful, so powerful, in his new-found ability to shake Roy Mustang's fabled self-control.

The man leaned back in his chair, folded his hands on his lap, and said:

“Ah, Fullmetal, Alphonse. What brings you here today?” Edward couldn't help but admire Mustang's ability to keep his countenance unruffled even as his eyes told a different story.

“Just stopping by to say hello!” Alphonse said, clasping his hands in front of him. Edward hoped that the younger man was really, truly oblivious to the silent exchange, and not just pretending. He tried not to think about it. He probably didn't really want to know. “Also, we wanted to let you know that we're making good progress on the project. Most of the notes are categorized and labeled, and we've read quite a few of the books. There are a lot of them, though.”

Roy stared at Edward's open collar, put his elbows on the arms of his chair, and laced his fingers together.

“You should be telling this to your liaison.”

“Oh, we will! We just thought you would like to know, too. We're learning a lot. We're getting a grant proposal together,” he said, expression turning blissful and distant, like it always did when they talked about a project. “Thank you for your notes, by the way.”

“Yeah, they've been really useful,” Edward said, which was the truth. “Didn't you say you had more of them?” he added, which was not.

Roy was no idiot. He knew exactly what Ed was really saying – he pushed himself up from his chair and stood.

“Ah, yes. I found them in my library. I have left them at home, but my lunch hour is approaching and I would be happy to retrieve them for you if you would like.”

“Oh no, please don't go out of your way for us. We wouldn't want you to miss lunch.”

“Says who? He's offering, I say we let him,” said Edward, then ran a tongue across his bottom lip, letting out a heavy breath. 

“You’re so considerate, Fullmetal, putting my needs above your own. Why don’t you come with me to keep me company on the walk.”

“But General, we have to get back to work,” said Al, not sounding too concerned. “We got here late, after all.”

“Your brother will be collecting more research, as good a use of his time as any.”

“Can’t hurt anything, Al. You go on ahead, start organizing stuff, I’ll be back before you know it.”

Al looked from one of them to the other.

“Hm. If you think you should, then okay. But get back soon: we don’t want to lose too much more of our day.”

“Oh, it shouldn't take that long,” Roy said, not quite managing to make himself sound nonchalant. Ed heard what lurked behind those words, heard what the man wasn't saying. He glanced furtively out of the corner of his eye to examine his little brother's reaction, hoping that Al wasn't listening too hard, wouldn't notice. That was probably incredibly naïve, though.

“Well then, you two have fun!” Al said, turning to the door and giving his brother a look of amusement as soon as the general could no longer see his face. Ed resisted making any kind of parting shot or face that might be even mildly incriminating.

“If you'll come along, then, Fullmetal,” Roy said, face neutral below intense eyes. Edward couldn't help but feel smug at the cracks he saw in the man's normally flawless control.

They followed Al out without speaking again, Mustang's presence almost tangible at his right shoulder. His body felt electric with anticipation, and he barely remembered to give Al the cheerful goodbye he expected before they split ways.

Alphonse had no sooner disappeared around the corner than Ed felt a yank on his arm: suddenly, he was stumbling through a doorway into a supply closet, unable to stop the forward press of his motion. He didn't get much of a chance to see what was happening, because half a second later he heard the slam of a door and he was pinned there, in the sudden dark, by familiar hands pressed up on either side of his shoulders.

“You are absolutely,” Roy said, voice deep and husky, eyes closed as his face hovered just a few inches in front of Ed's, “the most frustrating person I have ever met.”

Edward felt his throat dry, but gave the other man half a smirk. “Oh yeah?” he asked, arching forward to rub his hips up against Roy's. The man groaned softly as the hardness in Ed's pants met his, to the younger man's great satisfaction.

Mustang's breath rasped in his throat, his eyes sliding open again to lock Ed under his heavy gaze.

“Yes. God, Edward, you can't keep coming in to the office dressed like that unless you want me to fuck you into the floor. Is that what you're looking for?” he growled, and brought a hand down roughly between them to palm the evidence of Edward's insistent need. The blonde made a noise deep in his throat, grinding himself shamelessly up against the pressure. 

“Ah,” he said, eloquently. “I –”

And then Roy was kissing him, open-mouthed, and Ed groaned as that expert hand thumbed the head of his cock through his pants. He felt a tongue sweep into his mouth and returned the motion – and that one act gave way to a frantic clash of lips, sliding together and apart in a frenzy as the two men struggled to breathe, to touch as much of each other as they could. Their hands roved, grabbed, working instinctively on buttons to bare Roy's throat, his collar, his chest to the low light from the crack under the door. 

Neck, body, perfectly sculpted – Ed wanted to touch them, he moved forward to taste –

– and then Roy made a noise, long and deep, and Ed felt a red-hot chill in his stomach at the realization that Roy _wanted_ him, really, _him_ – that Roy was shuddering under Ed's mouth on his neck. The blonde nipped at it on instinct, then opened his mouth to lick, to suck at it eagerly. 

It didn't seem to matter that he didn't know what he was doing, that he had no idea what to do next, because Roy let his eyes fall shut, face heated and breathing quickening, throat rumbling under Ed's lips.

The sound of footsteps passed by their hiding place, tapping down the hallway, but Edward frankly didn't give a damn: Alphonse himself could have walked in on them right then and it wouldn't have stopped the hot press of their bodies together, the slow grind. The way Roy looked at him with eyes half-lidded was intoxicating, and if that hadn't been enough, the man slid a hand through the gaping front of Ed's shirt to run a thumb over the younger man's nipple.

Sparks shot down through him, and he gasped in a breath.

“Shit,” he said, world spinning. Roy gave a low chuckle that shot straight to Ed's groin.

“You like that?” Roy asked, voice gravel and heat and silk – his thumb skated over the sensitive flesh again. “Do you want more?”

Ed's voice deserted him. His mind hadn't left him any better off: it barely even registered that the other man was asking him a question. 

“Well?” he asked, voice low and rumbling, powerful voice shivering through Ed's ear. “Tell me what you want, now, or I'm going to make you.”

Ed shivered as the voice did something to his body that he just couldn't control. Some part of him still wanted that – to be forced into compliance – but another part of him, stronger for the moment, wanted to remember that there was more to this than a power struggle where Ed always came out on bottom. He took a breath and forced his brain back down to earth.

“Well,” Ed said, fisting a hand in the front of Roy's uniform shirt, “first I'm going to kiss you, and then we're going to get some of these clothes out of the way, and we'll see where it goes from there. How's that sound?”

Slowly, the man shifted so that his lips hovered half an inch in front of the blonde's, his breath ghosting hot over Ed's skin, and, and – Ed could feel their heat even across the gap, charged with anticipation, could feel the man almost like they were touching. Sheer want lanced through him, and he shivered in place, waiting.

“Your wish,” Roy said, though he didn't get to finish because Ed's mouth claimed his, lips clashing together in a fury of lust, need, desire. His hands stroked up Roy's back, feeling, testing, and they pressed hotly against each other. Then Roy's mouth slid down, breath heavy, and found Ed's neck – licking, biting, tasting. Ed's head fell to the side, leaving his neck open to Roy's attentions – he whimpered, surrendering to the sensation.

“You're – hah – enthusiastic today,” Ed said, as Roy's mouth found the hollow of his throat and set a fire in his skin.

“Well, _you_ showed up in my office with your shirt hanging open, looking eminently –” Roy's hand teased at the waist of his pants and then slipped in “– fuckable,” he growled, words hot on Ed's neck.

“Ha-ah, I – fuck, Roy – don't stop – ah –” Teeth bit down on his ear as rough-padded fingers slid between cloth and skin, tracing the head of his cock, and he lost all ability to suppress the keening moan that ripped from his throat. His head fell back against the wall, his chest forced into a sharp, shallow rise and fall that did nothing to make him feel less lightheaded, less like a drowning man.

Then, the hand that had been threading through Ed's hair came down and joined the other one to deftly unbutton the front of his clothing. In seconds, Edward's pants were down around his thighs and Roy's hand was moving on his shaft – hard, slow, long strokes that forced his hips into motion, and he would never get used to this, not ever, that sharp pleasure of someone else's skin on him and breath on him and gaze on him. Ed's eyes fell closed and his mouth open – and when he managed to look up at Roy through half lidded-eyes, he saw the general staring at him like a man bewitched.

Ed flushed, and looked away again, trying to keep his body under control as his mind recovered because Roy Mustang had a way of making him feel utterly naked. Every time it was different, so he could never figure it out, never plan for it, and the feeling made Ed's stomach jump to his throat.

This nakedness had nothing to do with physical vulnerability – he had felt that before, had liked it, and was slowly letting himself be convinced that maybe it wasn't something he had to be ashamed of. It had nothing to do with his lingering wariness, the fear that there was some catch he was missing. This was an emotional nakedness: he felt like Roy's look stripped him bare, down to his core and to all the things he would rather keep hidden, which was only made worse by the fact that he had no idea what the older man was thinking, no sense of it at all, except that it was something unfamiliar and maybe a little bit terrifying –

– or maybe exciting, he felt the thrill of it, and whatever it was hit him again like a wall as he heard:

“God, Edward. You're beautiful.” Then, Roy leaned in and kissed him, chastely, on the lips, even as his hand moved up and down Ed's cock in an act of obscene worship. Ed tried to keep his breathing steady, he _did,_ but that terrifying, thrilling feeling pressed back into his throat and got stuck there. He clutched Roy's collar, repressing a groan.

“Don't – nngh – don't say shit like that, you bastard,” said Edward, feeling hot breath on his lips. Somehow, that was different from anything before – different from Roy eyeing his ass in those leather pants, different from them making out on the man's carpet, different from him shoving Ed into a supply closet and grinding their bodies together like they might catch fire if he tried hard enough. Somehow those words from Roy's mouth felt more like real emotion.

Roy looked taken aback, for just a moment, and gave a half smile.

“Why not? You are,” he said, and the lie made Ed so sick that he pulled Roy in for an open-mouthed kiss just so that he'd shut up – that hand moving on him was nice, was wonderful, but the confusion that was building up inside him alongside the pleasure was not nice at all. After too long, drowning in it, they pulled apart to catch some air, and Ed said:

“Just... don't talk. We were doing fine without talking.”

Roy laughed again, and Ed thought about bristling, but then the man's thumb swiped the pre-come from the head of his cock and he gave a heated groan instead.

“I think it's sexy when you talk, but, as I said earlier, your wish is my command,” he said, and then every muscle in Ed's body turned to stone as Roy sank to his knees in front of him and pressed his lips to the tip of Ed's length.

Edward whimpered – nothing they had done up until this moment had prepared him for the warm, wet sensation of Roy's tongue, swirling around the sensitive head of his erection. Roy's lips slid around it, and Ed's body tried to buck into that mouth, but he found himself held still by the pressure of strong hands on his hips.

The lips moved down the shaft of his cock, just once, and then Ed was coming _hard_ in Roy's mouth with a long moan and heavy, pitched breaths, his whole body jerking in sympathy as Roy sucked down everything he had to give.

Ed closed his eyes, struggling to get his breathing under control, and felt the wet heat leave him with some disappointment.

“That good, huh?” said Roy from below, sounding as pleased and self-satisfied as Edward had ever heard him.

“Fuck, yes,” Edward said, and opened his eyes. “But don't you go getting too proud of yourself yet. No way I'm going without giving as good as I got, at least.”

Roy gave a low chuckle, and stood up. Ed couldn't tell his expression in the dim light, but he could hear the man's breathing.

“As appealing as that sounds, we really shouldn't spend any longer in here than we already have. My lunch break isn't eternal, and we both have work to do.” 

Ed frowned: what did that mean?

“So... you don't want me to?”

Roy pressed forward and, slowly, kissed him again, gentle – Ed tasted himself on the man's lips – then pulled away. When the general spoke again, his voice was low, rough:

“I wouldn't say that,” he said, and when he kissed Ed again, there was no mistaking what pressed against his stomach. “I wouldn't say that at all. What I would say is this: that look on your face when you came in my mouth was enough to satisfy me for now.”

If the younger man hadn't been so utterly spent, he would have gotten hard again at that.

“You always know just what to say, don't you, you shit,” Edward said, hoping he sounded half as pleased as he felt.

“I do my best,” Mustang said, a smirk in his tone.

“'Course you do. But, are you sure you don't want me to help you with this?” Ed asked, pressing his forehead to Roy's shoulder and pressing a palm to the man's crotch.

Edward grinned at the man's hissed exhale.

“If we had more time, but... As I have no doubt you've heard, patience is a virtue, Edward.”

“Says the man who tossed me into a closet to have his wicked way with me.” 

“Even my patience has limits, Edward. These clothes you're wearing,” he said, even as he took to buttoning up Ed's shirt, quickly, deftly, “test it thoroughly. But Major Hawkeye will be waiting for me, and your brother will be waiting for you, and I honestly need to get back. Regardless, I am going to spend the rest of the day fantasizing about fucking you over my desk” – Edward took in hot air – “and I fully expect you at my house tonight. We have some private research to get started on.”

Ed laughed, and pulled Roy down by the shoulders to kiss the man on the mouth.

“Whatever you say, General,” he said, grinning, when they had pulled apart. “Whatever you say.”

*

“I notice you've come back without any notes, Brother.”

“Nope. He couldn't find 'em.”

“I'm not surprised. A supply closet in Central Headquarters is an awfully strange place to leave your research.”

“Say another word, Alphonse. Do it. I fuckin' _dare_ you.”

*

Edward showed up at Roy's house that night with a stack of books and a grin. The stack of books only made it to the floor of the entryway, and the two men didn't make it past the living room carpet.

They didn't get much done that night. At least, not academically.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked, leave a note! I would love to hear from you. More, even, than you know!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains whipping and pain play. You have been duly warned.

**Chapter 7**

*

Edward sauntered in to his office a few days later, wearing those same goddamned leather pants, and grinned at him, razorlike.

That expression was entirely too familiar, and Roy's stomach gave a nervous turn. Those smiles usually meant something dangerous. He listened to his better judgment and watched the younger man's face rather than his gorgeous body.

“Spar with me,” said Edward without prelude. 

“What?” Roy asked, processing.

Ed rolled his eyes. He leaned on Roy's desk, sitting on the edge and propping himself up on a straight arm.

“Don't be a dumbass. I want to fight you.”

Roy's mind went blank.

“Why?”

“We've been over this: I miss punching people. Today in particular, I'm in the mood for something dangerous,” he said, and the general's body took notice. “You're the most dangerous person I know, other than Al, but Al and I spar all the time. So here I am.” Roy smirked, an automatic response that hid the strange flicker of pride in his chest. There weren't many people in the world Ed would compliment in the same breath as his genius little brother.

“And besides,” Ed added, looking terribly dangerous and also terribly appealing, owning the edge of Roy's desk, “it's good exercise for you. Can't let you get all soft and doughy.” He laughed, look turning mischievous. “That, and a good spar gets my adrenaline up.” 

Roy knew what happened when Ed got in that particular mood.

A parade of thoughts flickered through Roy's mind: first, the image of Fullmetal, panting, shirtless and sweating, destruction all around him – pure fantasy of the kind that robbed his breath from his lungs. Second came a memory of their fight: Roy's hand out in front of him, ready to snap, and Edward, blade to Roy's neck, looking tense and focused and lethal.

Roy raised an eyebrow.

“Oh? Do tell,” he purred, thinking of their last fight – years ago, now: Ed had been so young – in a new light. “I remember our last match. Were you after the same thing, even back then? Interesting. And on the parade grounds in front of everyone... What would everyone say if they knew?”

Ed rolled his eyes again and huffed.

“I can actually see your ego swelling, Mustang,” he said, still relaxed, neck deliciously exposed as he stretched out to the side. “You're gonna regret that comment. I was fifteen and basically asexual. I wasn't doin' anything kinky, I just wanted to make you pay through the nose for bein' a bastard.”

“Sounds to me like a case of repressed sexual tension. Are you sure you weren't trying to get my attention, Fullmetal?”

Ed looked at him with a sudden, wide-eyed incredulity.

“Of _course_ I was trying to get your attention. I just wanted you to take me seriously. You never did till recently.” Then, his tone changed from earnest to amused. “So take me seriously, dammit, and spar with me.”

Roy found himself temporarily lost for words. He had never expected Edward to be open with him about anything, much less about something so potentially embarrassing. 

“I have an engagement this evening that I really shouldn't miss,” he lied, never missing a beat. “Tell me why I should cancel it to go play with you?” _Convince me, Edward._

“Because it'll be fun, you shit. For you and for me. I like pain, you like makin' me squirm, sounds like a fun deal to me,” he said, smiling in a way that looked too genuine to match the words that were coming out of his mouth.

“So, you in?” the blonde asked, head cocked to the side. He watched Roy, unguarded and curious.

“Purely physical, or with alchemy?”

“With alchemy, 'course. More dangerous means more fun,” he said, grinning.

“So reckless, Fullmetal. That's going to get you in trouble some day.”

“It's gotten me in plenty of trouble already, but I'm still here to talk about it. I'm not too worried.”

“What about the property damage? Last time we fought it took us the better part of two days to clean up, and we had a parade ground at our disposal.”

“What, you can't control yourself?”

“It's not myself I'm worried about.”

“Worried? Seriously, Mustang? You _worried_ about going up against me?”

Roy gave a laugh that was half a huff of frustration. Trust Fullmetal to always know what buttons to push, and to do so repeatedly, shamelessly.

“Fine, you got me,” he said. “I'll meet you after work.”

*

Edward knew where all of the empty warehouses in Central were, due to long acquaintance: they were large and empty enough that crazy alchemists and rebel factions seemed to find them ideal hiding spots, which made Ed wonder who was stupid enough to leave them abandoned in the first place. They were pretty handy now, though, when he wanted someplace private to spar with his lover where the type of wanton destruction they were likely to create wouldn't be such a big deal.

He could almost feel Roy's eyes burning through the leather on his ass as he walked on ahead and flipped the bare electric switch on the wall inside the warehouse door. The power struggled on, filling the room with a flickering yellow light. He suppressed a hot shiver, and turned back to the other man.

“Can I help you?” Ed asked, crossing his arms and giving the general a smirk.

Roy stared at him hotly.

“Your pants,” he said, tone barely restrained. “You're wearing them again.”

The sudden force of his lover's desire never failed to shock Ed.

“Yeah. I thought – well, you liked them a lot, and every time I wear them you end up doing your dominant thing.” Ed swallowed his nervousness down, his throat suddenly dry. Words were easy for Edward Elric when they didn't mean anything: suddenly, when he really wanted them, they refused to come out properly. He soldiered onwards. “So, I thought that maybe, wearing them would be how I asked? When I want some pain, I'll wear 'em, so you don't have to keep asking me if it's okay,” he said, pressing his voice into nonchalance.

Roy looked like he was about to say something: Ed just kept running his mouth so he didn't have to hear it, because he wasn't sure he was ready.

“But when I don't want it you had better fucking not try anything. That's the trust thing. I'm trustin you not to try to get all high and mighty all the time, or to try and make me do what you want. But when I'm wearin 'em, I'm game. Is that cool? We have a deal?”

Roy stepped inside the door and shut the grey light of the day out, leaving them alone together in the warehouse. They both let the question hang between them for a moment.

“Well,” he began, and Edward's stomach took a nervous flip. “I agree in principle, but that hardly seems fair, does it?” Roy asked, face smooth and voice unreadable. “What if it's what _I_ want, what I need? Did that occur to you?”

The words snared Ed, cold. He watched Roy, and Roy watched him back.

“What?” he asked, to cover up the frantic spin of his brain. 

“Your whole attitude towards me and our play has been incredibly selfish. Would it kill you to show some consideration for me every once in a while?

Fuck, he'd gone and said something stupid again. How bad had it been – how much had he offended? Did he care? He wavered in between apology and fury – first one, then the other – no, no it wasn't fair, Roy was right, but did he want it to be fair? Roy had so much power some of the time, and that was fucking scary. A rush of arousal swirled into his emotional cocktail because he was in _that_ mood, goddammit, and it just infuriated him more that the man could do that to him even when he wanted to stand his ground.

He didn't like the look on the general's face. Not at all.

“As we have discussed before, our activities are as much a release for me as they are for you.” Mustang's expression just got colder, more distant, if that was possible.

Ed twitched.

“Goddammit, stop looking at me like that. Would it kill you to show some emotion every once in a while?” he said, crossing his arms and glaring knives. “I have no idea what the hell you're thinking.”

Roy raised an eyebrow, in his patented fucking Mustang expression – incredulous, superior. That wasn't the emotion Ed had been looking for.

“Did something I was saying confuse you? Apologies. I thought I was perfectly clear,” he said.

“I'm not confused,” Edward said, looking at the floor because he was either going to feel guilty or angry, but the former was going to get him in less trouble right now, and he really didn't want any more trouble. “I just wish I knew why you were asking.”

“And I wish you would give me something, Edward. Anything. I've been trying. I've been doing whatever I can not to scare you the hell off. I have been _so_ patient with you,” Roy snapped, and Ed stared, rigid, unable to move or reply. The emotion that flickered across the older man's face then was anything but cold. His face had pulled down into a frown, and Edward would have guessed that the man was furious if not for the tone of his voice. Was that... hurt? He couldn't be sure: the moment was gone as quickly. “Is this going to work between us? There has to be a give and take, Edward. I am more than willing to do whatever you need me to do in order to make you comfortable with what we're doing, but I expect the same in return.”

Edward wished, not for the first time, that his legendary genius would manifest itself in a useful way for once in his life.

“You – but you – you never said any of this,” Ed shot back, immediately embarrassed by his sudden turn to accusation but somehow unable to stop it. “This is the way I fucking am. If you don't like me, you don't have to be here. If I'm not doing good enough, you can just shove off and go find somebody else!” Ed crossed his arms and glared, not sure whether he was more frustrated at Roy or at himself. Why would his mouth never do what he fucking wanted it to?

“That's just it. I don't want to go find anyone else,” Roy said, and stalked forward to stand in front of him, close enough to touch. “You frustrate me, you make me angry, and sometimes I want to strangle you – but you also make me laugh, and you're so damn clever, and you always make me horny as hell.” He took a breath, and the distance between them crackled with a live energy. “It is... difficult to find someone who wants what you want, Edward, much less someone I would actually want to be in a relationship with. But if you aren’t willing to put in some effort, I have to wonder if you're not just using me to get what you want. I do not like to be used,” he growled, and Ed suddenly felt the height difference between them like a weight on him.

He wished he knew what to say. People in general confused Edward on a daily basis. This whole sex thing just made everything more complicated.

His confusion couldn't explain the tightness in his throat, though. A pause – he gathered his thoughts.

“I'm – sorry,” he said, the words thick and foreign in his mouth. “I just – I had no idea. I'm not very good at this. I don't even know what I'm trying to do, much less how to do it. And this is still so – not normal. Normal relationships seem confusing enough, and you confuse me all the time and – um, is this a relationship?” he blurted out, and wished immediately that he could take it back because Roy looked surprised, then all soft and amused and everything Ed didn't know what to do with.

“Yes, Ed. It is. Unless you have an objection?”

The younger man smiled back, and everything seemed much less terrifying.

“No, uh, not really. I mean, yeah, it's fine,” said Edward, a warmth in him. The tension between them dimmed to something normal, manageable – Roy's shoulders relaxed enough that Ed could see it.

“Good,” the man said, mirroring Ed's expression. “But that means we're going to have to work something out. Relationships take effort from both parties.” A pause. “I understand your reluctance. I really do. But I'm human, too, and my patience, while astonishing, isn't infinite. Christ, Ed,” he said, expression both wry and maybe a little bit pleased as he took a small step back and ran a hand through his hair. “We fight so badly that we'll tear each other apart if you don't start making an effort. Alright?”

Edward nodded, slowly.

“Okay. I don't know exactly what you mean, though. What is it that you want me to do different? If you could tell me specifically what I'm doing wrong, that might help. I mean, is it... is it just sex stuff, like the – pants thing? I've never done this before, you know,” he said, flushed. “I don't really – well, you shouldn't be surprised that I don't know what I'm doing.”

Roy gave a faint laugh.

“No, it's not your performance in that arena. At all, actually. You're the most perfect creature I have ever had the pleasure of undressing.” Edward's cheeks felt very hot. “But when our clothes are on? You are still confrontational, and you insist on ordering me around, as if you want to make up for the times when I am in control. I need that to stop, and I have to to be able to ask you for things that I need without you throwing a fit. I need you to have some consideration for me.”

A sudden guilt clenched his throat tight, settling there, familiar.

“I'm sorry,” he said, feeling very small, but keeping his voice steady. “I know I can be an asshole. I'm just gonna make a blanket apology right now. I'm gonna fuck up a lot more. You should probably prepare yourself for that.” Roy responded with a laugh, and Ed risked a smile. “I'm willing to try to not be an asshole, though, if you'll tell me how to fix it.”

Roy stroked a gloved hand down Ed's arm.

“Just understand that our activities require mutual understanding and compromise. This is as clearly as I can say it: I need to be able to ask you to submit to me when I need it,” Roy said. It was not a request, it was a statement: here are the terms, how will you respond? “That never means that you can't refuse, though. You can always refuse, at any time, as can I.”

Ed nodded, too aware of the rough fabric on Roy's hands. “Yeah. Okay. I can do that.”

“Good.” A pause. “Do you want me to ask in any particular way?”

Ed thought for a moment, head cocked to the side.

“Well, if we're doing the clothes thing...” The heat in his cheeks turned to a proper blush. “Maybe by wearing your gloves? They're, uh, kind of really fucking hot.”

His breathing sharpened and a shudder slid down his spine as Roy's smile cut him through.

“Is that right?” he asked, shifting all in one instant into the other man, the Roy Mustang who could make Ed want to give in.

“Don't get ahead of yourself,” the blonde said, forcing the words out his irritatingly uncooperative lips. What he wanted and what his body wanted seemed to be at cross purposes for the moment. “We're sparring first, remember?” A pause, backpedal. “I mean, if you still want to.”

“That’s not so different from what I had in mind,” Mustang said. “Either way, you're just begging for a beating, aren't you?” His rumbled words sent shocks to Ed’s groin.

Ed snorted and pulled away, so that hand wouldn't be so distracting.

“Still cocky after all these years at a desk, huh?”

“Well, I am very skilled,” Roy said, words smooth, “and you are out of practice. Think fast,” he said, and Ed's body barely had time to throw him to the floor in a side roll before a bloom of flame seared the air where he had once been.

“The fuck, Mustang?” Edward said. He clapped and pulled a blade out of the back of his metal hand, blood pounding through him. “You're still pulling that same shit, Mr. Start-it-quickly-and you'll-end-it-quickly, huh? Kicking it off before we've started is still a cheap, dirty trick, but now it's not even original any more!” He lunged forward, arm lancing towards the other man's throat, but fingers snapped and left a stream of flame before he could get there.

“Well, you still fell for it, so what does that say about you?” Roy returned, eyes following Ed's form as he snapped, burned. Edward ducked around, between, below, weaving in and out of Roy's fire. His mind whirled, searching the environment desperately: what could he use?

“I guess I expected you to be original this time, but I shoulda known. I bet everything starts and ends quickly with you.” Ed sprang up and behind a stack of splintery crates – the place was loaded with them, perched precariously on top of each other in towers anywhere from one to five high. What could he do with those? Without actually hurting Mustang, Ed amended.

“I don't know about that, Fullmetal. I can drag this out as long as you want.”

“You come over here and fight me man to man, we'll see how long you last!” Ed snapped, scrambling around the backs of the crates as flames shot above them, then curved down, over, seeking their target. Fuck if the man didn't have perfect control over where that shit was going. It would have been impressive if it weren't so goddamn irritating.

Ed looked up, still scrambling forward as fast as his mismatched legs could carry him, which was pretty damn fast. He searched for anything that might help, noted pipes in the ceiling. Would there be water in them still? No, this warehouse had been abandoned for years, the water had probably been turned off a long time ago.

He felt a flame lick at his heels as he sprinted around the crates to behind the place where he knew Roy was standing. He vaulted over the boxes towards the man, and found himself facing another burst of fire, larger than he himself was.

He sprung back again, away, dropping to the floor: the flame passed over him harmlessly, and crackled out.

“Mustang, you son of a bitch, you lookin to kill me?” Ed shouted. He was on his feet again in a second: he bolted around the side, then leaped back over the crates to see Roy's back. Three steps, then he dropped to the ground and slammed out a leg to sweep the general’s out from under him. No luck – the older man jumped over Ed’s sweep with a surprising agility, spinning around to face his opponent. The moment he landed, he snapped his fingers. Flame struck through the air at the ground, but Edward rolled away, hissing as he hit a wall of crates.

“Oh, no, not at all,” Roy said, sounding entirely too unaffected. “I have complete faith in your ability to avoid my attacks.”

A clap and a press of hands: then, the crates exploded in a cloud of sawdust – a tongue of fire missed Ed by a foot.

“Well it's a good fucking thing you're not stupid enough to underestimate me. That's the worst mistake a lot of people have made!”

“Oh, I know you too well to underestimate you. If I'm tiring you out, though, I can go easy on you.”

“Fuck you.”

Edward clapped again, then put his hands to the ground: four great slabs of concrete lifted up from the floor and came together in a shell around where Roy had been. Ed let himself feel pleased for just a moment, though the feeling was abruptly stolen from him as fire blasted around both sides of the concrete box to converge right in front of him. He jumped to the side and sprinted around the box, to find Roy smirking on the other side.

“The hell did you do to get out of that one, you bastard?” Ed asked, pausing for just a moment.

“You're not the only one capable of using a piece of chalk, Fullmetal,” the man said, and Edward felt that familiar low burn in his stomach as he saw the man standing there like a monument, his flame-gloves out, promising. “You know, if you would just give up, I could give you what you really want.”

“Not a chance, Mustang,” Ed snarled, and rushed forward, snapping out his blunted blade and dodging the strings of flame that shot around him. He spun to the side, out of the path of the fire and used the momentum to carry his weapon towards its target – it scraped across Roy's side even as the man sprung away, not quite fast enough.

“Ha! First blood,” Edward said, though his blade was dulled, so there was of course no blood at all.

He must have let his guard down in that moment of pride, because within seconds he found himself pinned to the floor, face-first, with Roy's body on his back and breath on his neck.

“Well done,” Roy said, voice rumbling into Edward's ear and shivering across his skin. “But that still doesn't mean that you've won.”

That heavy pressure – that heat on his back – Roy’s hips grinding down on his ass – 

Damn the man. Just – fucking – goddammit. Like he needed another distraction right now.

Edward let all the struggle go out of him, let his muscles loosen and his head sag forward. 

“Oh? Giving up already, are we?” Roy asked, but in a flat second Edward wound up every muscle he had and twisted, caught Roy between his legs. He flipped the other man onto his back and felt a satisfying thud as he went down. The look on the man’s face was more satisfying still.

He bounced straight up off of the man, skidding back a few feet and back into a fighting stance, and let himself feel a wash of pride at the sight or Roy Mustang on his back.

“Giving up? Not fucking likely,” Edward said, grinning like fire, but his celebration was short-lived. He had somehow forgotten that being on the floor didn't stop Roy from snapping. The fire arrowed straight towards him and he dove to the side behind a crate – the red whip curved to follow him, then caught on the wood, set fire to it.

_Fuck, what is that smell,_ he thought – his brain put the pieces together just a hair too late, he had less than a second to realize that the smell was gunpowder, and that meant –

He jumped to the side as quickly as his body could carry him as the crate erupted into a sparking bonfire, but he wasn't quite good enough. The flame blasted through the air so quickly that his metal arm got caught in it. Even as quickly as he pulled away, he felt the pain of his joints melting together, his wire nerves turning to bubbling liquid –

– and in that brief moment of pain, the answer came to him.

Fire needed oxygen. Without air, nothing could burn. The circle on Roy’s glove didn’t really transmute fire, if you thought about it: it transmuted _air._ It transmuted air, and the flame followed – or didn’t.

Edward knew that transmutation circle, backwards, forwards, inside out; he knew it cold any day. He pictured it in his head, clapped his hands together, took a deep breath – then pulled his hands apart and drew all of the oxygen away from the area between Roy and himself.

Roy choked immediately, and when he snapped, no fire came from his gloves. Ed’s transmutation was the stronger. He surged forward, put his blade to the general’s neck, and savored the look of the older man, frozen there, for just a moment before finally letting his transmutation fade. Oxygen rushed back into the area, cool and welcome against his skin.

The elder man took a deep, gasping breath.

“And checkmate,” said Edward, stepping back and pulling his arm away from Roy's neck. His heart thrummed, raced, the sweet spark of adrenaline pounding through his blood, making his whole body ache and his mouth run dry. “What did you think of that, _General?_ ”

“Taking all of the oxygen out of the air so that my fire couldn't burn... impressive, Fullmetal. You won this time. Congratulations.”

Ed might have glowed, even preened, at another time, but at that particular moment other concerns were paramount.

“We're not done yet,” he said. He wasn't ready for this feeling – this blissful, stinging, heady feeling – to be over.

“Oh?” said Mustang, voice rumbling low. 

Ed looked around quickly for something he could use, saw a piece of rubber tubing, discarded for years. He clapped, enjoying the last pained twinges of his cooling metal arm, though he was careful not to let it show: if Roy knew what had happened to his arm, he'd probably end this immediately. But there was nothing more that could happen to it now, so what was the point of stopping? He bent over and picked up the tubing, drawing it into a whip of a few feet long that tapered down from one end to the other. 

“I want you to hit me with it,” Edward said, and extended the makeshift implement towards the general. 

The man took in a sharp breath – if Roy's arousal hadn't been evident enough before, it certainly was now.

“And,” he said, reaching out to take the implement from Ed's hands. “What do we say when we want things, Fullmetal?” He bent it, flicked it once or twice, testing it. He looked so comfortable, so confident with it in his hands: the sight almost took Ed's breath away. There wasn't anyone else like that man, not anywhere.

“You're going to have to try a little harder if you want me to beg,” Edward said, trying out a smirk. He wouldn't just do it. He wanted Roy to _make_ him beg.

Roy's smirk put his to shame.

“You're going to regret that you said that.”

“Yeah? Prove it,” Ed replied, tilting his head to the side. Roy took a breath, and assumed his role.

“Take your shirt off,” Roy said, every word forceful as a blow, and just like that Ed was hard. He didn't say anything, just pulled his tank top off over his head and let it fall to the ground beside him. “Turn around. Kneel.”

He did so, and bent forward slightly to expose his bare back to the other man. He could feel the heat off the general as the man came closer, and wrapped his arms around his stomach as he squeezed his eyes shut and let his head fall forward.

“That's right,” Roy growled, and Ed felt the light trace of the whip on his back. His erection throbbed, constrained by the curl of his body. “You're being so obedient. I haven't even heard a word of protest from you today. How unusual.” The circles the man teased on his skin burned every bit as much as his scorched arm.

And then, Edward heard the noise of cutting air: a long line of pain erupted on his back, thin and sharp and beautiful. He gasped, couldn't help it – goddamn, that _hurt,_ stung and burned and lit every bit of him up from the inside. Another lash, a third, each new one criss-crossing the last, and after a few more he lost count because he was floating somewhere up above his body, everything a haze except for the scream of skin, of metal and muscle, the blissful rush of adrenaline and endorphins. Every time he felt another blow it was different, new again, no one area hit twice in succession; good, because the last thing he wanted was to get used to it. This – _this,_ high on the pain and his arousal and on Mustang standing right behind him –

This was the most beautiful feeling in the world.

“Is that – ah – all you've got?” Ed asked, feeling another deep sting across his back. He didn't know why he said it. Another lash: he allowed himself a soft cry.

“Are you challenging me, Fullmetal?” Roy's growl focused right in on him, and he shivered, body recognizing that tone even without the presence of his mind. “I will win a contest of endurance.”

“Oh yeah?” Another sharp crack burned the air in his lungs, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “I'm still not – fuck – begging.”

This time the tongue of the whip on Ed's back cut harder, deeper – shit, he was pretty sure he was bleeding, the sensation thin and biting. Like hell he was going to ask the man to stop, or even slow down, though – not after his challenge.

“I've barely gotten started, Fullmetal. You will, by the end.”

Edward moaned, the hardness between his legs insistent and undeniable. This giddy feeling, the rush, the excitement, the adrenaline – he felt so awake, so alive, in this moment –

– and just when he thought he never wanted the feeling to stop, it did, suddenly. Edward's voice filled the emptiness with a whimper, and he began to turn around –

“No. Don't move.” 

Ed froze where he was.

And then, a touch on his back: soft, gentle, caressing. The blonde hissed and pulled away as something soft and wet moved across a lash-mark – Roy's tongue, it had to be. It stung like the devil but didn't really hurt, not enough, not down to his core, and Ed made a small noise of despair as the man laid a devastatingly gentle kiss on his shoulder, then another, damn him, another. 

“Unbutton your pants,” the general said, almost casually, in between the silken presses to Ed's back. A hand stroked down his side, and Edward followed the command. “Now, touch yourself,” he growled, and Ed nodded, hoping the other man understood because there was no way his mouth could form words right then. 

He managed a soft cry – a pitiful, needful sound – and slid his knees apart. He leaned forward so he could put his left hand on the ground to support himself, and worked his cock out of the cloth with his automail. He squeezed it hard, so that maybe the pain of that would make up for the screaming emptiness at his back. The general growled, breath hot on Ed's neck, then bit down on the muscle. Roy's hand moved from his side to his back, pretending to soothe, but the gentle friction of it just made his skin sting worse.

Ed squeezed his metal hand down on his cock, moving it slightly, just a bit, doing his best to be careful but how could he be – his rational mind was somewhere up near the rafters and all that really mattered was the shock of pleasure that crept up through him, taking him over, unrelenting. He whimpered at the sting of wetness on his shoulder, wanted more, but refused to beg: not this early, not this easily.

The rhythm of his hand increased, slowly, the pleasure of it burning through him. A cool breath of air met his back, and before he knew what was happening, he felt another lash there. He groaned, the intensity of the two sensations building hot in his mind again, blocking out everything else – he didn't know when his eyes had slid shut, but he couldn't open them.

Then, lips on his shoulder, down his spine, then a pause and the sting of the whip again.

He was so hard it hurt – he wanted to come, he needed to come, but he didn’t want it to be his own hand, not when the general was so close – and before he even knew what he was doing he heard words out of his own mouth:

“Please, General. Fuck me. God, I want you to fuck me.”

He didn’t know why he had said it, but he knew as soon as he had that it was true.

There was a sudden, tense silence. Edward didn’t move. He hadn’t been ordered to, yet. Then, a hand on his shoulder, pulling him around: Mustang knelt in front of him, eyes hot and dark and exactly like his own.

“Is that really what you want?” he asked. The man’s free hand came up to stroke down Ed’s neck, and he shivered.

“Yes, please, just –”

And then he couldn’t talk because Roy was kissing him, open-mouthed, fucking him slow with every sweep of his tongue. Ed moaned, deep in his throat.

Mustang pulled away, to Ed’s disappointment.

“God, I want to, Edward,” he said, sounding like Roy again for a moment. “You don’t even know how much I want you right now. But you’re going to have to stop tempting me.” He gave a wry little smile. “Our first time together isn’t going to be on concrete in some warehouse with no preparation. It’s going to be in a bed, and I'm going to do it properly.”

Fuck, no, he couldn’t wait that long, he needed it _now_ – he started to stroke harder, faster, but before he knew what was happening, Roy’s hand had replaced his own on his cock, pumping, sliding, bringing him closer to the edge. With the very last piece of his conscious mind, Ed fumbled with the button on Roy's pants, clumsily freeing his lover's erection and stroking it, long and heavy. Then, they were kissing again, tongues tangling around each other as free hands twisted in hair, clasped onto bodies, stroked and learned and worshiped.

He came with a feeling like exultation, his head thrown back and crying out, trying to keep a rhythm with his hand even through his pleasure. As he came back down from the rafters, conscious mind beginning to reawaken, they kissed again, Ed's hand speeding up to match Roy's shallow breaths.

When Roy finally came in his hand, they shared it – mouths pressed together, bodies touching: warm, and strange, and wonderful.

*

“Why the hell didn't you say anything?” Roy snapped, fear and guilt blooming into anger for just one moment. “If something's wrong, you're going to have to _tell_ me.”

If he hadn't seen the damage with his own eyes, Roy never would have believed that Ed was injured. He sat on Roy's couch like he owned it, arms flung out over the back and arms with one foot up on the coffee table. His tank top left his injured metal arm in full view, resting on the cushioned fabric at a slightly awkward angle – the metal had blackened, and the elbow joint seemed unable to bend to its fullest extent. The general bent over it, putting a hand out onto the cool metal. One of the plates on the back of the hand had come off, exposing the wiring that normally would have transmitted sensation from the pressure plates to Ed's brain, though now it covered the inside of the Automail casing in drips of colored metal.

Ed snorted, rolling his eyes like Roy's concern was just annoying. Roy chose to believe that it was just an act.

“I'm tougher than that, Mustang. I'm not gonna roll over and die just 'cause something stings a little.”

Roy touched Edward's arm again, tracing the delicate machinery as if to test whether it was real. It felt just as substantial as it ever had.

“Edward, I _melted_ your _arm,_ ” the general said, half in disbelief.

“Only a little. I've had worse. C'n barely feel it now.” The sinking in Roy's stomach must have been visible on his face, because Ed gave him a strange look and said: “It's not your fault, you know. Damn box was full of gunpowder, not like you did it on purpose. It was my fault – I didn't move fast enough.” Then the blonde man grinned, bright and happy. “I beat you, though.”

“Yes, you did. Well done,” Roy said, meaning it completely. “But Edward, I don't think you're taking this as seriously as you ought to.”

“The fuck? It's my arm, I think I know how bad it's busted.”

“Yes, fine. But that's only part of the issue here.”

“Yeah? Seems to me like you just feel bad. You don't have to. I told you already, it wasn't your fault.” Edward's words were so matter-of-fact, so uncompromisingly stated, that Roy wavered between being touched that his lover cared enough about him to try to deflect the blame, and being pained that the man cared so little about himself or his safety that this wasn't a big deal.

“I do feel guilty, and frankly I deserve to. But there's something else that's even more important: I have to ask. Do you want me to have to hold back in the future? Either while fighting or in play.”

Edward made a face.

“'Course not. Why would I?”

“I didn't think so. But if you don't want me to, then I am going to have to be able to trust that you won't let your stubborn goddamn pride stop you from telling me when you're hurt. I don't want to injure you. I don't ever want to really hurt you. Part of the point of this is to keep you safe.” Roy put a hand to his eyes and rubbed at them, exhausted. “Besides all that,” he added with a pained laugh, “your brother is going to murder me in my sleep after he finds out about this.”

Edward's expressions passed through such an astonishing range so quickly that Roy couldn't even catch them all.

“I'm not gonna let him do that,” the man said, looking at the floor. “Told you it wasn't your fault.”

“Alphonse might see it differently – but in any case, if I survive the next two days, then things may have to change in our play. I'm going to have to be much more careful with you. I will have to restrain myself, if I can't trust you to tell me when to stop.”

Edward sank into his seat at those words – Roy felt the immediate spread of guilt, because he looked like he had been kicked.

“But – I didn't want you to stop. I asked for it to keep going. My arm wasn't gonna be any less melted if we stopped then.”

The older man heaved a sigh.

“Yes, well. I admire your stamina. Really. Your pain tolerance is amazing.” Edward's look turned pleased, and the general shook his head. That wasn't what Ed was supposed to be getting out of this conversation. “But Ed – please promise me that next time, you'll stop me before something like that happens.” He closed both his hands over the younger man's metal one. Ed looked away.

“Yeah, whatever,” he muttered, coloring in his cheeks. “'slong as you promise you're not gonna start bein’ on eggshells around me or anything. I don't break that easy.”

Roy gave a short laugh. “No, of course not. Of course not.” A pause – a breath. “Ed, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me.”

Edward's eyes shot back over to Roy, startled.

“What? There's nothing to forgive.”

“Please just take my apology. You don't have to argue with me.”

“Not arguing. Just don't want you to get all guilty an' shit,” Edward said, like the hypocrite he was. “It's no big deal. You didn't even do anything. You're such crap that you could only even hurt me by accident,” he said, and grinned, equal parts warm and fierce. The expression lit a smile on Roy's face, too – this ground was comfortable, familiar.

“No, more that you're so slow that you can't even get away from something I literally put no effort into,” he said as he stood, then moved over to sit down on the couch next to Ed. He cut off the younger man's snarled response: “But seriously, Ed. Let me pay for your trip back to your mechanic and for your repairs.”

Ed gave him a disbelieving look.

“What, now that I'm not working for you anymore, you finally stop being a tight-fisted bastard? Go fucking figure.”

“Maybe you would have gotten a bigger paycheck if you hadn't made us spend so much money on cleaning up your little disasters. You're never happy unless you've blown up at least one building in every town you're in.”

Ed's dark scowl brought a smirk to Roy's face. 

“Hey! If you hadn't fucking sent me to every goddamn rundown backwater with a gun-toting nutjob then maybe I woulda blown up up less shit!” The sight of Ed's crossed arms and glowering look was familiar, pleasant.

“I seem to recall that a large number of the buildings you destroyed were in towns that I never even sent you to. You just make trouble everywhere you go,” replied Roy, crossing his ankle over his knee and putting an arm over the back of the couch.

“Fuck you, Mustang!” the younger man snarled.

“That's more like it,” Roy said, and laughed. “I get nervous when you're too nice to me.”

Ed's face went purple for a second, then retreated back to its normal color palette.

“Son of a bitch,” Edward said, looking wary, but not angry. No, no – not angry. Roy slid a hand down to rest on the younger man's leg – innocent, not at all sexual, just a brief physical reassurance.

“Guilty as charged. So, you'll be on the first train to Risembool tomorrow morning, right? And you'll let me pay?”

“Fine. I'll tell Winry to charge you double for being an asshole.”

“Fair enough,” Roy said, and grinned.

***

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing would mean more to me than if you guys would take the time to leave a comment. I'm not even sure if people are making it this far, or if they're abandoning ship halfway!
> 
> If you liked, let me know!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is early, because I'm impatient. I try to stick to a schedule, and look where that gets me?
> 
> Now may be a good time to remind you that this is based on the 2003 anime, (though with something of an alternate ending, but that's not really important). Also, thanks to everyone who commented last chapter, it really means a lot to me!

**Chapter 8**

*

As usual, Winry's wrench was the first part of her that Edward saw. 

“What the fuck, Winry?!” he shouted from where he had fallen to the ground, one hand over the throbbing lump on his head. What the fuck was this woman's deal, anyway? “You don't even bother to ask me why I'm here before you give me another crack in my skull!”

“Nothing I could do to you would crack your skull,” the girl snapped back, rage practically screaming off of her. She stood on the front of her porch, fists clenched. Edward was really glad that she seemed only to have one wrench at the moment. “If I could get through to that brain of yours you would have stopped breaking your automail a long time ago!”

“You don't even know that I've busted anything yet!” Ed picked himself back up off the ground and crossed his arms.

“Of course you’ve gone and broken it again! When else do you ever come home except when you've done something stupid and destroyed my masterpiece?”

“I didn't do anything fucking stupid! It was all Mustang's fault, don't put it all on me!”

“Don't you start blaming other people for things that are your fault, Edward Elric!”

“I'm not, you're fucking nuts! Stop blaming _me_ for things that aren't _my_ fault!”

Winry's face became God's holy terror in seconds. Edward felt very cold.

“Get inside,” she snapped.

“Yes ma'am,” he said, because she had direct control over a very important part of his body and he wasn't about to antagonize her any more than he already had. The swollen lump on his head throbbed.

“Wait,” she said, turning back into a human being again for just a moment as she looked around. “Where's Al?”

Oh thank god, safe territory again. He smiled brightly, wishing he had thought to bring her a present this time.

“Oh, he's back in Central. Don't you worry about a thing, he's just taking care of business. We're doing contract work now, somebody has to keep it up while I'm away!” he said, passing through the open door into the warmth of the Rockbell home. The years hadn't changed the place at all. Still, it smelled familiar, comforting: machine oil and fresh bread mixed with the clean smell of the countryside, and maybe just a little bit of Granny Pinako's tobacco. 

Sometimes Ed missed the country air more than he could say. Central smelled like coal smoke and cars, and even as much as he would never want to move back here – what the fuck would he do in Risembool after all this time? Raise sheep? – sometimes he regretted that he didn't come back more often. _Still the country boy after all these years,_ he thought with some amusement.

The way Winry lit up at Ed's mention of work brought a smile to his face.

“Really? The two of you have jobs now? That's great!”

“Is that Edward I hear in there?” Granny Pinako's voice drifted out from the kitchen, followed shortly by the woman herself, an unlit pipe in her mouth. “So it is,” she said, “It's been a while. What's this I hear about jobs?”

“It's not anything dangerous, is it?” Winry asked, deceptively sweet. “That's not how you busted your arm, right, Edward?”

“Actually, it's mostly organizing and making sense of research collections, with some planning and construction work. I'm getting to do some of my own research on the side, too. We're doing military stuff, but before you two get your panties in a twist, it's all strictly civilian shit. We take on the jobs we want, don't take the jobs we don't, and none of it's particularly exciting but it sure as hell beats sitting around the house all day doing a fat lot of nothing.”

Edward walked over and dropped down onto the couch next to Den, who let out a quiet whine. 

“I'm so excited that you two are settling down,” said Winry, clasping her hands behind her back. “Can I come up to Central to see your new place sometime?”

“Yeah, 'course. Whenever,” Edward said, giving Den a scratch behind the ears. 'We've got time, now. We'll be stickin around for a while.”

Winry gave him that kind of look that made him squirm-in-his-chair uncomfortable and a little bit happy and a little bit guilty, too. She looked so goddamn happy sometimes, when she smiled at him. He wanted to smile back because he liked it when she was happy – of course he did – but he still felt like that smile expected something from him, though quite what that was he couldn't be sure. 

He could make a guess, though, and though he might be sticking around in one place for a while yet, it wouldn't be near her.

“Well, that’s a relief. I was beginning to think you two would never stop running around doing dangerous things. I’m glad to hear that I was wrong,” said Granny Pinako.

“I'm happy for you two. Really, Ed.”

Ed flushed and turned his head away.

“Yeah. Sure,” he muttered. “Whatever.”

“You'll tell Alphonse to come home soon, won't you?”

Edward grinned. “Ah, I don’t really need to. He’s sad he missed it in the first place. But he’s also all responsible and shit, you know.”

“Yes, Alphonse always was the good brother,” Granny Pinako said with a smile. She pulled a match from her pocket and struck it. Within moments, the smoke from her pipe had begun to haze up around her head in a circle.

“Hey, what the fuck’s that supposed to mean,” Edward said, more out of habit than anything else. “I’m good too.”

“If you were good, then you wouldn’t be so careless with things that other people poured their heart and soul into,” said Winry, not sounding too terribly angry – but then again, that wasn’t a very good measure of her mood. She was one of the _smiling_ psychopaths. “Come back to my workshop, let’s take a look at the damage.”

Granny Pinako turned back to the kitchen. 

“Don’t be too rough with him, Winry,” she said. “I’m planning on making lamb for supper. It’d be nice if he were alive to eat it.” 

“Alive? Can do,” she replied, cheery.

“And I like my remaining limbs,” Edward whined. “Can’t you give a guy a couple minutes’ break?” he asked, even as he shifted and stood, giving Den a farewell pat.

“There’s no sense in wasting time,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. Edward shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched forward.

“I’ll get that lamb in the oven, then,” Granny said, because the only reasonable response to violence was clearly food.

“You’re the best, Granny,” Edward said, before the rest of his sentence was cut off by a strangled yelp as Winry grabbed him by his hair and gave it a good yank, fairly dragging him backwards towards his doom.

“Don’t expect him for a while, though,” the mechanic added, still smiling. Den gave Ed a pitying sort of look but didn’t move to do anything, and the old lady ignored him entirely, the bitch.

Winry’s workshop looked just like it always it had, which was comforting in its own, steady way – though he was also fairly certain that he could still see the faint stain of his own blood on the wooden floor, which wasn’t so comforting.

“Strip,” she said, and jabbed her finger towards the chair.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, because what else could you say when she got like that?

He took off his brown leather jacket and unbuttoned the white shirt he wore underneath, leaving them piled on the small couch that had been his place of refuge through many a bout of verbal or physical violence. The chair next to the desk that Winry liked to work at glowered at him, but he sat down in it anyway, like a man. He stretched his metal arm out onto the desk as she brought over a tool-case full of whatever torture implements she planned to test on him. She sat down on the other side of the table, took out a screwdriver, and began to carefully remove the screws that held his arm plating down.

“How’s business been?” Ed asked, just to fill the weirdly empty space between them. “Your apprenticeship going well?”

“Yeah, definitely!” she said, never looking up from her work. “Rush Valley is really the place for me to be. I have quite a few loyal customers. Actually, I’m starting to make a bit of a name for myself,” she said, corners of her mouth curving up faintly. “But it’s always nice to come home and spend some time with Granny, too. It’s not like I could just up and abandon the family business, you know.”

“Yeah, ‘course not.”

“And besides, what I’m doing in Rush Valley is good advertising for Granny. I don’t make a lot of money from the apprenticeship – and that’s fine, it’s not really the point – because I’m only getting a percentage of what we make on each commissions, but I take some time off every so often to come back here and work with Granny on our own stuff. Between the pieces we’re designing for people here in Risembool and the ones that I bring back to Rush Valley, we’re really kind of making a mint.”

“That’s good to hear,” he said. The last screw fell out of his arm and hit the table. “I was always surprised that you and Granny got enough business, being out in the middle of nowhere like this.”

“Well, _some_ people appreciate fine craftsmanship, and are willing to make the trip to get – Edward, what’s this?” she said, interrupting herself. Her tone was suddenly very different. “What have you… is this wire melted?” she asked, eyes bright blue and some combination of sad and confused that Ed liked even less than the look of murder.

Ed glanced down into his arm, and okay, it did look pretty bad. The wires had stained the inside of his casing in bright splashes of copper, coating delicate gears and ball-bearings in thin sheets of metal.

“Uh, maybe?” Edward said, trying not to look as nervous as he felt. “It’s not so bad. It was all over in a second, so it didn’t even really hurt. The rest of me is fine, so it’s all okay.”

“This is not what I would call okay,” she said, gesturing emphatically at his arm with her screwdriver. “It’s _melted,_ ” she repeated, then paused, eyes widening. Edward did not like the look of realization that was dawning across her face. “So… when you said it was all General Mustang’s fault –”

“Yeah, put it on that bastard’s tab,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ve got his address and shit in my bag, so you can mail him the bill. And charge him double, just for bein’ an asshole.”

She frowned. “But… why was the General using his flame attacks on you?”

“Sparring. Wasn’t any big deal,” he said, and felt the heat start to rise to his face. What would Winry think if she knew?

“Okay… sparring I could get, but… melted? Why wasn’t he going easy on you?” she asked, brow furrowing.

Edward snorted. “You think I’d let that bastard go easy on me? I’m not that pathetic. He trusts me to take care of myself. I won, in any case,” he said, allowing himself a hint of pride.

She prodded the inside of his arm. Of course she would have noticed that the hydraulics wouldn’t move anymore.

“You’re such an idiot,” she said, eyes down to the table. “His fire attacks could kill you. He should have been keeping better control over himself! He’s dangerous,” she said, softly, and Edward felt his stomach lurch for reasons he didn’t quite understand.

“Hey, now,” he said, frowning. “Don’t go blaming him for everything. Was my fault I didn’t get out of the way fast enough. It was an accident. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was my fault.”

She sat in silence for a moment as she removed another piece, then held it up to her eye to examine it, distantly.

Then, Edward went cold, broke out into a sweat that felt like ice on him, the room suddenly small and oppressive and – shit. For the first time, it dawned on him.

“Don’t make that face,” Edward said, looking away towards the door as guilt began to sink through the panic and settle in his gut. On the one hand, Mustang was Mustang, and they were – together, or whatever, and the man had given Ed his alchemic code and was fucking good to him even though Ed was a moron and an asshole and socially stunted had no idea how to do any of this.

On the other hand, he was also the man who had killed Winry’s parents. 

He couldn’t believe he had never thought of this before, never put two and two together to make _disaster,_ never thought about what he was doing in terms of the people around him and not just what he wanted, and what Mustang wanted. This whole thing had been fucked up to begin with, Edward had suspected he was sick in the head already but this proved it, because what kind of a person would he have to be to sleep with the man who killed his oldest friend’s parents? They had been like an aunt and uncle to him. Could there possibly be a worse betrayal?

“And why shouldn’t I make that face? I’m worried about you,” she replied, and Edward shrank down into his chair, shoulders hunched. _She_ was worried about _him?_ Shit. There was a silence: she prodded his metal arm with her screwdriver. “This arm isn’t going to be a quick fix, you know,” she said, sounding steadier than she had a moment ago. Automail focused her, centered her, just like alchemy did for him. “I’m going to have to take it off, okay?”

He nodded, then said, “Please don’t worry about me, though. I’m fine. Al and I are both fine. Please don’t.” He heard her stand and walk around the table, but couldn’t look at her.

She pulled a chair around behind him and sat down on it, then took his arm in hand and worked it back and forth. The pressure plates in his shoulder warned him when she went for the latch. He tensed up out of instinct, but there was no sound, no feeling there. Instead, she said:

“Wait,” her voice soft and confused and frightening. She put a cool hand on his back, stroking it. Edward hissed and pulled away – shit, that still hurt. He hadn’t realized his back would take so long to feel normal again after his and Mustang's play in the warehouse.

A voice in his head said, _Fuck, damn it all, damn **everything** ,_ because it felt like she was tracing the whip-marks on his back.

“What are these cuts?” she asked. Edward’s mind raced, trying to find an answer, trying to come up with anything to tell her that would make that tone go away, make her forget about this like it had never even happened. He wished with a sudden fervor that he had thought to wear his tank top or at least wait a couple more days after his and Roy's encounter before going to see Winry or anything. Had Roy drawn blood, that day in the warehouse? Yes, he had, Ed remembered the wet trace of it on his back. He hadn’t minded at the time, but now – now he was faced with the consequences of his carelessness, just like he always was.

He twisted away from her stinging hand.

“Nothing! They’re nothing. They’re – I got in a fight, that’s all. I’ll just take my arm off myself and get out of your way, okay?” he said, shooting to his feet and turning around so his front faced her. He didn’t want to look at her, but he wanted even less to stay facing away so that she could see those telltale marks that crossed his back, whether red welts or scabbed lines.

“Did the General give you those, too?” she asked. Her voice shook.

“Um,” he said, staring at the floor, mind spinning a million ways and still coming up with nothing to say. Part of him wished that his fucking genius brain could magic up some clever words, some reasonable lie that would explain everything: part of him knew he shouldn't even try. Even though Winry deserved to be spared the suffering of knowing about all of this, Ed deserved every instant of her hate. His mouth remained stubbornly silent.

“What are those marks from? They look like…” She paused, and he saw her hands clench on her lap out of the corner of his eye. “They look like whip marks.”

He winced to hear it from her mouth. He had been holding on to some small hope that she wouldn’t recognize them, because how often did a person see whip marks? That would have been a small mercy, but it occurred to him that marks like that wouldn't be so unfamiliar to a country girl: she had probably seen some badly treated horses over the years. That was just it, wasn’t it? He had let himself get whipped like a horse, or a dog. He had liked it. It was just as fucking bad as it looked.

There was a painful silence between them that stretched on. After a few moments, thirty seconds of pure torture, she spoke again.

“Ed, why didn’t you answer me when I asked if he gave you those?”

“I can explain, I swear. Shit,” he said, because he had to come up with _something:_ Roy hadn’t done anything wrong, it wasn’t fair that Ed’s mistake was about to demonize him further in Winry’s eyes. The marks weren't Roy’s fault, they were Ed’s, he had asked for everything Roy had done.

“Then explain it to me quickly, because it looks pretty bad from here,” she shot back, eyes narrowing.

“Look, I’m bad at explaining, but it’s not a problem, alright? Fuck, I really don’t want to have this conversation with you. Can you just drop it?” he asked, hunching over and shoving his hands in his pant pockets again.

“No, I’m not going to drop this,” she snapped. “What’s happening with you? You never tell me anything and it's always scared me. You’re scaring me worse now – at least back when you were a state alchemist I had some idea of what was happening with you. At least I knew what you were after. Now I don't know anything at all, and you won't even tell me. What's happening, Edward?”

“Well, I – shit. It’s complicated,” he said, because it was. “He’s not abusing me or anything.” Her eyebrows shot up at his choice of words. _Abusing?_ That implied that there was a relationship to begin with. He didn't want to imply anything. Fuck, why couldn’t he just lie to her? “It's fine, I swear.”

“Really? Because, whip marks? Your arm melted? That seems pretty messed up to me,” she said, standing up and clenching her fists by her sides, elbows locked.

“Hey, the arm was an accident,” Ed mumbled.

“Oh, so the whip-marks were on purpose?”

“Well, the marks weren’t, exactly.”

“Are you telling me,” she said, slowly, “that General Mustang is whipping you? And you’re letting him? Is this some kind of fucked up punishment?” He flinched to hear her use a word like that. It wasn’t like she never cursed, it wasn't often.

“You aren’t making any sense, Edward,” she said, voice going quiet again. He looked up from the floor just in time to see her eyes go watery.

“Shit, Winry, Don’t cry. Please don’t cry,” he said, but his pleas were in vain, of course, and he was the worst person in the world for making her want to.

“Tell me what’s happening, Edward. I worry. I worry so much. I worry about you going out to some town somewhere and sticking your nose someplace it doesn’t belong and getting yourself killed for it, or trying something stupid with alchemy and then suddenly you’re gone, no more Edward. That’s bad enough. But now I find out that you’re in the most danger when you’re at home? What the hell is wrong with that man?” That last sentence, said through tears, held so much fury that he reacted on instinct.

“Nothing! I was okay with this. This was on purpose,” he finally managed. “I asked him to.”

Another deep silence.

“Oh, Ed,” she said, and the way her voice broke when she said it twisted something deep inside him. “Edward, you – I know that sometimes you feel like everything that’s’ ever happened to anyone is your fault, but it’s not. You shouldn’t have to feel that way. You deserve better than – than – whatever this is. You don’t have to keep punishing yourself for everything you’ve ever done wrong.”

Maybe not everything, but this thing he damn well deserved punishment for.

“Winry –”

“No, don’t interrupt me. Listen. You don’t have to let anybody do _anything_ to you, least of all _him._ God, Edward, you know what he’s done.”

“It’s not like that,” he said, halfhearted, feeling so very small, and alone. Fuck. He did know what Roy had done. He also knew that the man paid for it every day, he knew because he saw the look in the man’s eyes sometimes, he remembered it from the end of their first fight and from sudden moments in quiet conversations and from that day when Roy had confronted him and Al by the river in Risembool. They had never talked about their sins, and probably never would. They both had skeletons they would rather keep in the dark.

But Winry… This wasn’t a skeleton for her. It was a daily, living emptiness where her parents had been.

“What have you gotten yourself into?” she asked, and that was it – she started crying, and Edward was the cruelest son of a bitch who ever lived for hurting her like this, hurting her in a million ways. She didn’t fucking deserve any of this.

“I haven’t –”

What _had_ he gotten himself into?

Nothing he couldn’t get himself out of. 

If it would make Winry feel even a little bit better, he would.

“I’m sorry, Winry,” he said, and turned to the door. He picked up his shirt and jacket on the way and shrugged them both on, sped through the living room, grabbed the handle of his suitcase, then was gone down the long road without another word.

*

He knew they’d be looking for him, that they would go to his mother’s grave and to the little bed and breakfast in town, then when they didn’t find him in either of those places they would wait at the Risembool train station the next morning before the only train left. Edward resolved not to be there then, where he could talk to them and they to him. He took to the train tracks and began to walk, walk, walk, each footstep steady and rhythmic and numbing.

If he walked fast enough, and far enough, he had told himself, he wouldn’t have to think about it. It hadn’t worked. It rarely did.

He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting exhaustion – it had to be nearly morning now, and his feet burned from the strain of the all-night walk.

He would call Alphonse first, he decided. Winry had probably called him, told him that Ed had gone missing, told him how worried she was. He had probably stayed up all night. Maybe they both had. 

He was a coward, he knew, but he just couldn’t face her. He should have told someone where he was going, called Al, but he had needed to get out of town as soon as possible. Now he had made Al worry, too.

Goddammit, he was going to have to call Roy. He owed the man that much. He just – his stomach lurched again like it had earlier, made him sick – just didn’t want to have that conversation. He didn’t know what he was going to say. What could you say?

He’d just have to fucking man up and do it anyway.

He reached the next town just after daybreak, checked the train schedules (god, where was he going to go? Liore, he decided after a moment, tapping his finger on the chart as if to reinforce his decision), found himself a telephone booth, and readied himself for the most difficult series of phone calls he was ever going to have to make. He straightened himself, took a fortifying breath, and dialed.

The phone hardly finished its first ring before a breathless “Hello?” echoed from the other end.

“Hey Al,” said Edward, surprised at how dull his own voice sounded.

“Brother?! Where have you been?!” Ed winced, but didn’t get a chance to reply. “Winry called last night, said you two fought and that you just up and disappeared, nobody had seen you anywhere! I stayed up all night waiting for a call! Why didn’t you? I was so worried, brother,” said Al. Even over the tinny phone speakers, Ed could hear how constricted the other’s voice sounded.

“I’m sorry, Al. I’m fine. I’m in…” He looked around for a moment to see the name of the station, but then decided against it. “I’m in some little town near Risembool. I’m fine,” he repeated, automatic. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

“You had better be sorry, or else I’m going to be very angry at you! What could you and Winry possibly have fought about? You two fight all the time, what makes this any different? She wouldn’t tell me what happened, said that you ought to, so you had better! I hate being left in the dark. I knew I shouldn’t have let you go alone. You can’t do anything without me.”

A brief laugh caught in Ed’s throat.

“Yeah. You’re right. I can’t do anything without you.”

“So come back to Central _right now._ But first, if you tell me what happened I can do some damage control.”

“You can’t do damage control on this, Al,” he said, and took a breath. “Winry found out about me and Mustang. Mostly, anyway.”

Al went quiet for a moment.

“And… she wasn’t happy, I take it.”

“I think that’s an understatement. There were, uh, marks on my back, and I was stupid about what I said, and so she found out and what the fuck is wrong with me anyway?” said Edward. For a brief moment he managed to summon up his usual energy, but it was gone almost as quickly. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” he asked again, quiet.

“Brother, we’ve been over this, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“You and Roy are the only people in the world who don’t think so. I let him fucking _hit_ me, Al. That’s supposed to be a thing you can go to jail for, hitting the person you’re with.”

“It’s different, we’ve talked about this, Ed –”

“There’s that,” he said, cutting his brother off, “and the fact that he killed her parents. He killed them, Al,” Edward said, the lump in his throat choking his words. He could keep it together. “What kind of a fucked-up person goes and fucks the man who did that? What must she think of me, now?”

There was a long pause.

“I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about it that way,” Al said, soft.

“Yeah. Me either.”

A pause. 

“She found out everything?”

“No, we didn’t actually talk about it being – a sex thing. I didn’t tell her Roy and I were together. How the fuck could I? I just…” He let his shoulders sag, his head hang forward. “I had to get out of there. I can’t talk to her right now. I can’t come back to Central, either, not for a while. I can’t see him.”

“Brother, if you come back we can talk this out. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t do anything you can’t take back.”

“Don’t you get it, Al? I already _have_ done something I can’t take back. I’ve hurt her so badly, and she’s _right_ to be hurt. Goddammit, I have to –” He put a hand up to his face, crumpled it over his eyes. “I have to call him. We have to end it. This couldn’t be any more fucked up.” A breath. “I have to go, Al. I’ll call you at the next station I get to.”

“Wait, Ed, you have to think this over.”

“G’bye, Al,” said Edward, and hung up the phone.

*

Roy’s house felt strangely empty now, after several days without Edward in it. Funny how big the place seemed without Edward’s expansive presence on his couch, in his kitchen, his library. Various alchemic texts still sat, stacked neatly on his coffee table because the housekeeper knew better than to move books-in-use but couldn’t bear to just leave them strewn about the room like they had been.

He picked one up himself, reading the title from the well-creased spine as he walked across his living room. _Notes on Experimental Life Alchemy:_ a thriller if he’d ever read one, but useful nonetheless, if he remembered correctly. He stopped in front of his phonograph, thumbed through the record collection shelved beside it, and picked a slow string quartet in A major. A favorite melody, recorded by the string section of one of the best orchestras in Amestris. He moved the needle to its proper position and turned the machine on, closing his eyes as the song began to play. Not a song that Edward would appreciate, he guessed.

The Saturday morning was empty and peaceful: on days like these, he almost regretted being so attached to his job. Restless was the wrong word: bored was more accurate.

He walked back over to his couch and considered sitting down there, eyed the phone and then the cushions, weighing each option. But who would he call? He didn’t really have any friends save for his team, and they weren't usually appropriate companions for a Saturday afternoon. Prior to just a few weeks ago, he might have spent the day in the company of one of the endless ladies in his little black book, but he had a feeling that Edward wouldn’t appreciate it. The man protected all of his chosen people with such a fierce loyalty that Roy couldn’t help feeling guilty over even entertaining the idea of asking for an open relationship.

The phone made his decision for him, a sharp ring startling him from his thoughts. He stepped over to pick it up.

“Hello? Roy Mustang speaking,” he said, putting the book down on the top of the cabinet next to the phone.

“Hey,” he heard from the other end of the phone – Edward, clearly.

“Ed?” he asked with some surprise. “What are you doing calling at this hour? It's unusual for you to call.”

“Yeah. Just had to talk to you,” he said. Roy frowned. There was something off about Ed’s voice.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, feeling suddenly that the question was urgent. “Did something happen?”

“No. Well, maybe… I…”

Roy’s heartbeat tripled in speed for a brief instant.

“What can I do for you?” he asked the silence, though he knew that whatever it was, there was probably nothing. Edward’s laugh filtered, broken, through the line.

“Stop being so nice and shit. No, you can’t do anything.” He paused. Roy waited. “There is a reason I called. We have to stop what we’re doing. We can’t see each other anymore. At least not for a while, and not, not ever the way we were.”

The rush of adrenaline hit him like vertigo.

“I don’t understand. What happened? There’s clearly something you’re not telling me.” A pause: no answer. “Are you leaving me?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. I’m really sorry. I am, Roy. I don’t mean to hurt you, but I guess I just can’t help it. It’s in my nature. Can’t ever get away from that.”

Roy closed his eyes. There had to be something else. Things had been just fine when Ed left. Better than fine. They had been figuring things out, everything had been going right for once - or so he had thought.

“Don’t say things like that. They’re not true. And if you’re afraid of hurting me, there’s a simple solution: don’t leave.”

Ed laughed again. Roy liked the sound even less this time.

“I’m sorry. I have to.”

The older man breathed slowly, steadily. “Can you at least tell me why?”

“I can’t. I really can’t.” A pause. “I have to go. My train’s leaving.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I dunno. Wherever I feel like.”

“Edward, come back to Central. We can talk this out.” Goddammit, what hadn’t he done? What had he missed? What had he forgotten? He had been so careful, so _very_ careful, what the fuck had he done?

“We really can’t. I’m so sorry. Goodbye, Roy,” he said, and left Roy only with the heavy click of a phone returning to its cradle.

***

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um.
> 
> Hi guys.
> 
> Super nervous. Please nobody kill me? That would be great.
> 
> Comments reassure me that I'm not a total idiot?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, angst warning? But I'm sure you've guessed that.
> 
> I hope I didn't overdo it!

Chapter 9

*

Roy stood there in silence for a moment, telephone receiver to his ear and mind still reeling.

 _Alphonse,_ he thought, distantly, as he gained control of himself again. _I have to talk to Alphonse. Al will know what to do._

His hand shot out and spun the phone dial – six numbers to connect with the Elric home.

“Hello?” said a voice on the other end. “This is Alphonse Elric.”

“Al, I’m glad you’re there. It’s Roy.”

“Oh my god, General, I’m so glad you called. I kept trying to get through to you but the line was busy. Were you talking to my brother?”

“I was.”

“What did he say?”

“Honestly, not much, except that he doesn’t want to see or speak to me ever again.” Roy kept his voice determinedly, forcibly calm.

Alphonse sighed, long and loud.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” A pause. “Can you come over? We need to talk.”

*

 _It’s a damn good thing that at least one of the Elric brothers is reasonable,_ Roy thought as he stepped out of the motor pool car, giving a quick thanks to the driver before opening their little gate and striding through to the front door. A damn good thing, yes, because this situation needed sorting, and hell if Roy was going to get any help from Edward in that area.

Alphonse jerked the door open before the older man even had a chance to knock on it. He looked tired, and bedraggled, and maybe a little bit frantic.

“Thank god you’ve made it. Please come in,” he said, and Roy stepped into the entry way. The place smelled sharp and woody, like cedar. He paused. “I – shall I make you some tea?” Al asked, shakily, still the generous host despite everything, or maybe it was just a habit. Routine could be so comforting, sometimes.

“Thank you, I could use a cup,” he said, not so much because he needed one but because Al looked like he needed to make one.

Al shut the door behind them and walked over to the kitchen. Roy followed, hands in his pockets, and watched the younger man rustle through his cabinets for the appropriate materials. One spoonful of leaves in the teapot, then the kettle went on the stove. Roy said nothing, and an awkward silence hung between them for a moment. Al pushed himself up to sit on the counter, next to the stove, his legs dangling off the side.

“Brother didn’t happen to tell you where he was or where he was going, did he?” Alphonse asked as soon as he was settled, with a look that could almost be pleading. He wanted the reassurance of authority, Roy guessed. As much as the older man would have loved to play that role, right at that moment he didn’t even have enough assurance for himself, much less any to spare for someone else. Roy pulled out a wooden chair from the kitchen table and sat down.

“I’m afraid not,” he said, with a shake of his head. “I would very much have liked him to. Something seemed to be very wrong, only he wouldn’t tell me what it was.” He kept his face and voice calm. He just had to find out what had happened, then fix it. This wasn’t a fundamental issue with their relationship. It was just a problem. Roy was good at fixing problems. 

“Well,” Alphonse said, lacing his fingers together on his lap, “I can see why he didn’t say anything. But, regardless, you need to know. You two are important to each other, even if neither of you will say so.”

Roy didn’t reply.

“Alright. So. Ed went back to Risembool to get his arm fixed a few days ago. You knew this. I’m still mad at you about the arm thing, by the way,” the man said, narrowing his eyes. “But that’s neither here nor there right now. In any case, he was talking to Winry about his arm and about things in general, and Brother can really be extraordinarily bad at keeping secrets sometimes. He’s very honest.”

Roy nodded. “Unsubtle” might have been the word he would have chosen, but it all came out to the same thing.

“What I’m trying to say, General, is that Winry found out about brother’s – um – activities. I think there were marks on him somewhere. She was… she was very upset,” said Al, looking very upset himself.

Had he left marks on Ed’s back after their play in the warehouse? He searched back through his memories: yes, he had, he recalled. There had just been a bit of blood, maybe one cut, maybe two, but that was enough. Dammit – in hindsight, as always, everything became so very clear. He never should have used that whip that Ed transmuted. Rubber was so sharp, so painful, so likely to cut. He just hadn't minded much at the time, and neither had Edward.

He remembered thin, red lines across the man’s back: some would scab over, others would probably bruise. At the time, it had been a beautiful thing. Not everyone appreciated the sight of red welts over packed muscle, or the blissful expression on Edward's face as he had gotten them.

Well, anyone at all would appreciate the expression itself, and would appreciate the noises he had made as he touched himself there on the warehouse floor. Roy was lucky as all hell that he was the only one who had ever gotten to experience either. 

“I see,” Roy said, tearing his mind away from the image. “Yes, this can look very bad if you don’t know what’s happening.”

“Even if you do know what it is, it can be hard to understand. Sometimes I wonder…” Al shook his head and cut himself off. “Anyway. Brother was having enough of a problem not feeling like a messed-up freak even before anyone else was judging him for it. He’s really very good at judging himself without any help.”

Roy nodded and leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. The pale whistle of the kettle interrupted their conversation. Alphonse hopped down and busied himself pouring the water into the pot, then collected teacups and saucers and the sugar pot as the drink steeped. Roy noted with some distant amusement that the dainty cups had floral patterns on them – definitely not Edward’s doing.

“So, basically,” Roy said, watching the other man pour tea through the strainer and into each cup, “Edward is just getting cold feet,” he said, brilliantly relieved. “So all I need to do is find him and talk to him. He’ll come around.”

Alphonse’s face tightened, and he paused in his activities. Roy’s stomach dropped into his feet at the look. 

“Well,” said Al, and the way he said it made the word cut deep. He picked up the teacups and saucers and carried them over to the table, then returned within seconds with the sugar pot. “That’s not all of it. Winry found out that Brother’s been doing this with _you._ It's, um – it's your and her history together. That's why she was so upset.”

A sick rush hit Roy then, a memory – blood on the floor, blood on two bodies – the doctors had pleaded, they had looked scared, but everyone looked at you with terror when you had them cornered, and he hadn't had the sense or the guts to see what he was doing until it was too late. A million thoughts whirled through Roy Mustang’s mind.

“I see,” he said, and spooned some sugar into his tea.

“Then I’m sure you understand the situation,” Al said, his look searching. Roy felt the creases at the corners of his eyes, the tightness of his lips, felt suddenly very old, older than he had any right to be. The younger man exhaled, long and slow, and slumped down a little, like he had deflated. “Brother’s not okay. I’m sure he feels like a horrible person, and probably a million other things besides. He gets all lost in his head sometimes. I think he's lost now. He’s prone to doing really stupid things when he gets like this. It’s scaring me. I don’t know what he’s going to do.” He held his cup between his hands, not even drinking it.

Roy didn’t know what Alphonse wanted him to say. He didn’t know what he ought to say. Should he give meaningless assurances, say that Edward would be fine, that the man could handle himself? His ability to do that depended entirely on how much he wanted to.

He knew that Edward got trapped up in the past, in memories of his worst moments – the two of them were alike in that way. He had watched Edward as a boy, seen him scared and angry and guilty after a million little defeats that never held him back but certainly tried, hit him as hard as they could right where it hurt.

They had never talked about any of it. Edward clammed up, violently sometimes, whenever anything about his past came up. He didn’t let anybody into that head of his – nobody except Alphonse.

Suddenly, inexplicably, Roy realized that he wanted to be allowed in there too. He didn’t want to lose Edward before he had the chance to learn about him. It was selfish of him, of course – he would be hurting the Rockbell girl, who didn’t deserve to be hurt any more than she already had been. He would, no way around it. But in those moments when Edward gave one of his genuine, brilliant smiles, when he was utterly present in whatever moment took him by surprise, when Roy himself had caused one of those looks of delight, the world seemed just a little bit brighter.

It wasn't all selfish, though, because he knew – at least, thought – that he made Edward happy, too.

“I know your friend has every right to hate me,” Roy began, “and that Ed probably made the right choice in leaving me.” Alphonse looked down at the floor, and his shoulders sagged. “I also know that I’m not ready to give him up yet. I’m sorry,” he said, not knowing precisely which of his many offenses he was apologizing for.

Al gave him a smile, and put his cup back on its saucer.

“I know,” he said, and Roy was sure he did. “If I thought that this was all so meaningless to you that you’d be willing to give up now, I never would have called you over.”

Roy took the first sip of his tea. The liquid was red-gold, and warmed his throat as it went down.

“I just want to see brother happy. He has trouble letting himself just _be._ There always has to be something making life complicated.”

Roy nodded.

“And do you think,” Roy said, testing each word before he spoke, “that if he would stay, then I could make Ed happy? Our relationship is never going to be uncomplicated. I guess what I mean is, you think that I’ll be worth the trouble?”

Alphonse gave him a sharp look – maybe threatening, maybe just judging, Roy couldn’t tell. He sipped his tea again.

“I think that you had better make him happy. He deserves some peace in his life, after everything he’s been through.” Al cocked his head to the side, watching the older man, and his voice became softer. “And I think that maybe, you do too.” 

A silence. Roy was very glad for the tea.

“And what about Miss Rockbell?” he finally asked. Alphonse sighed, and shrugged.

“I would love to help you more, but I’m afraid that all I can really do is convince her to talk to you. After that, you’re on your own.”

“That’s all I would ask of you,” Roy said, ignoring the dread, and the memories.

The younger man took a long drink from his cup.

“But believe me,” he began, hard, "when I say that if I ever hear about anything like you melting my brother’s arm again, then she and I will be lining up to hurt you, and not in a fun way. Am I perfectly clear?”

“Perfectly,” Roy said, watching the other man. “In fact, I’ll hold you to that.”

“Good,” Al said, and stood up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call to make.”

*

It took nearly an hour’s worth of telephone conversation and three days of travel for Winry to make it to Central. Al called General Mustang immediately before going to meet her at the train station. The man would need to be on call, ready to come over at a moment’s notice if she agreed to talk to him. If not, Al would take her out to a nice dinner, and she could sleep on it, and they would try again tomorrow.

Actually, he decided, he would take her out for a nice dinner, however things went. He had just received his first ever paycheck, and wasn’t there some tradition about doing something special with that? She would need something to fall back on. Any way the coin fell, this was probably going to be a stressful day for her.

He met her with a smile at the train station, and returned her hug in kind.

“Hey Winry,” he said as she pulled away. “How was your trip?”

“Ugh, long,” she said, and gave Al a look of delight as he stooped to pick up her luggage from where it sat beside her. “Oh, thank you, you're so considerate. Even though three days is a lot shorter than it used to be, it’s still too long to be cooped up on a train. I need a shower something awful.” She was probably right: her hat seemed to have left a semi-permanent impression on her hair, flattening her bangs to her face and leaving a heavy dent in the rest of it. Al laughed.

“Yeah, three days of trains will do that to you, especially since you took the sleeper cars, didn’t you?” he asked, then started walking towards the station exit, suitcase in one hand, the other arm around Winry’s shoulder.

“Only last night, but it's so hard to go to sleep on uncomfortable beds when you're being shaken around like that! Remind me not to do that again, I’d rather ride a horse if it meant I got to stop for the night,” she moaned, though the last time she had ridden a horse she had fallen straight off the side and Ed had made fun of her for the rest of the day. 

Al laughed.

“No you wouldn’t. You’d miss all the gears and wheels and engines and stuff.”

“Very true,” she said, as they stepped out onto the front stairs and into the sunshine. Cars whirred by next to a bustling pedestrian crowd on the sidewalk. “It's not so bad. Actually, on my first day they let me go up to the engine, and I got to see some of the new technology they’re using to make the trains so much faster! You have to see it to believe it, it’s so amazing,” she said, eyes turning starry and distant.

And then, the topic of conversation was machinery, and Al barely needed to respond at all after that. He just smiled and nodded and occasionally interjected a word of interest or understanding as they passed across the pavement, still wet from the day’s earlier rain, and started towards the house.

The walk and Winry’s enthusiastic monologue lasted for more than half an hour, but if it had lasted an hour or two, truthfully, Al wouldn’t have minded. She just got so excited when she talked about machines, and seeing her happy made him happy.

Eventually, they reached the little gate that marked the entrance to his front yard.

“And this is it,” Al announced when there was a lull in her monologue. “This is the place we’re calling home for the moment.”

As he presented it to her, he looked at it again with fresh eyes, glancing over the elaborate façade and the gargoyles that decorated every possible corner, the stained glass window on the east side. At first, he had been a bit embarrassed about his brother’s Gothic additions to their new abode, but now they gave him a strange swell of pride. Nobody else’s house had skulls on the balcony railings. He was glad he had stopped his brother short of turning them a shiny gold, though. That would have just been in bad taste.

He hadn’t been able to talk Ed out of the little moat that surrounded their little lot, but the garden beyond it belonged completely to Al. He would trust his brother with his life, but never with his rosebushes.

“It definitely looks like you two,” Winry said with a little laugh as Al opened the gate and led her across the short bridge that spanned the moat. “Ed went a little crazy, huh?” she said. Even though she was smiling, Al could see her face tighten.

“Yeah, he sure doesn’t do anything halfway,” he said, and pulled his key from his pocket. He unlocked the door and opened it, letting Winry in.

“Have you heard from him, at all?” she asked as she passed by him into the living room.

“Once, since I called you. He says he’s fine. He wouldn’t tell me where he is, though.” He set the suitcase down in the living room by the fireplace. “Have you eaten? I can make you something if you want.”

“No, that’s fine,” she said, taking a seat on the couch. She looked around, pressing her knees together awkwardly, the rest of her body just as tense. “This is a really nice place,” she told him. She didn't seem to mind the fact that there were books stacked on the floor, or that a collection of coffee mugs had reproduced and started families on the side tables.

“It is, isn’t it? I’ve gotten really fond of it. We made a lot of the furniture ourselves, too.”

A silence cut the air between them. Winry sat on the couch, expectant, and Al stood there on the far edge of the rug, the quiet ringing in his ears.

“I guess we should talk about what I brought you here to discuss, then, huh?” he said, finally moving forward to take his own seat.

“I guess so.”

“Alright then, I’ll get right down to it. Brother told me the basics about what happened between you two. I didn’t get much in the way of details out of him, though, so maybe I could hear your end?”

“Yeah,” she said, then paused. “Well, he came into my workshop with his arm all busted up, like he always does. I guess you knew about that?”

Al nodded.

“It was burned pretty badly. There were scorch marks all over, and he couldn’t move it properly. The wires were melted all over the inside of the case, Al,” she said.

He frowned. He hadn’t ever actually seen his brother’s arm. He never liked hearing about Ed getting injured – but at the same time, he knew that his brother had had far worse injuries than that in the past.

“And then he told me that Roy Mustang had done that to him, and I got – I got scared, Al. I mean, he said they were sparring, but sparring shouldn’t be dangerous, should it? I was scared, and still a little mad from when Ed told me he had busted his automail again, and then I’m _really_ mad at the general for what he did to Ed. And then I’m working on his arm and I see these marks on his back.” She paused, voice catching, and all that Alphonse could do was reach out and put a hand on her knee, just for the physical reassurance. 

“He's got all these bruises and scabs and red welts, and stuff.” She looked down at the floor, her words wavering in the thick air. “I ask him if General Mustang gave him those, too. And Al, he doesn’t answer me,” she said, looking so very hurt and bewildered. “I’m scared for him, Al. I don’t know what’s happening, except that that _man_ is doing something horrible to him, and I – hasn’t he hurt enough people already?” she asked, and finally let herself cry, big wet tears that rolled down her face in shining lines.

Al hurt for her, and all he could do was squeeze her knee.

“Winry,” he began, picking each word carefully, “I know that there’s more at hand here than just this, but I can tell you one thing: it’s not what you think it is. I know how it looks, but I promise it’s not that.”

“Isn’t it?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch. “Well that’s good to hear, because I don’t even know what I think it is. Did you know about all of this?” she asked, and there was accusation in her voice.

“Most of it. I can only help with one part of this issue, but I’ll do my best to explain.” A pause, thinking. “Winry, the General and Brother… well, they’ve been getting pretty close recently.”

His childhood friend stared at him, uncomprehending. The tear-tracks on her face shone.

“Some things happened, and even though they were both really stupid about it for a while, they’re in a relationship now.”

The world around them stilled, and a silent dread suffused the space between them.

“They’re… what?” she asked, finally.

“They’re in a relationship, committed and everything. Brother really likes General Mustang. I think the General really likes him too.”

A look of horror spread across her face.

“A _relationship?_ Ed and General Mustang? You mean… _romantic?”_ She took in a shaky breath. “Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Winry. I guess Ed didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to hurt you any more than he already had.”

The look on he face hurt him, and he moved over to the couch to put his arm around her. She sat, stiffly, head hung forward.

“I don’t even know where to start,” she said. Al let his arm hang loosely around her waist. “I just don’t understand why Ed would do something like that, knowing everything.”

Al nodded, and held her closer.

“If they’re together, then why would Mustang do those things to him? Why would Ed let him? I never thought Ed would be the kind of person to get into an abusive relationship.” She turned her eyes to him. “But sometimes I know he blames himself for everything that's ever happened to anyone, and doesn't always think very well of himself, and maybe he thinks that a murderer who beats him is the best that he’s ever going to get. Only it’s not, he’s brilliant, he could have anyone he wanted. Al, why would you let something like this happen? I thought you two were supposed to take care of each other.” Her body began to shake beside him.

“I know what it looks like. It’s not abusive, though. If I thought there were anything wrong with it, I would have stopped it by now. It’s consensual. The two of them…” Al swallowed, putty under Winry's wide-eyed look. “It’s hard to explain. The best that I understand it is that it’s a kind of, uh, role-play, um, in – in bed,” he said, knowing that his face had probably flushed a deep red. He turned his eyes to his knees, but soldiered on, for his brother's sake. “There are lots of people who do it. One person plays the role of a dominant, and the other the submissive. This is something that they both enjoy, something they do to make themselves happy and to make the other person happy, too. Sometimes they do things that will make the submissive person feel pain, but it’s always because the person enjoys it. Either party can always stop it, if they want to.”

Another silence.

“That’s… that’s fucked up,” she whispered, and when he looked back at her, her eyes had closed. “I never thought that Ed would ever want to be submissive to anybody.”

“Believe me, Ed isn't acting any differently at all, as far as I can see. And it’s a little weird, sure, but I don’t think it’s messed up. Lots of people like it.”

“Nobody I’ve ever heard of.”

“That makes sense. I think that the people who do like it tend to keep quiet about it, because most people who don’t like it think just what you're saying – that it’s wrong, or disturbing, you know. They're scared of being judged for it. But, some people just enjoy pain, and some people enjoy not having to worry about doing anything, not having to make any decisions for an hour or two. Other people enjoy having control.” He paused. “I thought it was really weird at first, too. But then… but then Brother liked it, and he seemed really happy. I mean it, Winry. I think this was something he needed, he just didn’t know it until the General came along.”

Winry leaned in to his side, and Al wrapped his other arm around her. When she spoke, her words were muffled against his shirt.

“I still think there’s something wrong with both of them.”

“Maybe,” he said, and stroked her hair. “But how would I know, and who am I to judge? Maybe I'm the weird one and they're perfectly normal. And before all of this started, I was actually really worried about Brother. This sort of play seems weird, but trust me when I say that it's way better for him than the stuff he was doing before.”

She didn’t ask what he meant. Maybe she had gotten too many answers that afternoon already, and didn't want any more..

“Mm,” she said, by way of reply. Then, “It makes me sick that General Mustang would want to keep hurting people, after everything he’s done. And Edward, why would he… Mustang murdered my parents. They were like an aunt and uncle to you both,” she said, softly. Al swallowed nothing, throat dry.

“I can’t answer that. I would love to, but even if I knew, it wouldn't be my place to share. But I will say this one thing,” he added, carefully, meaningfully. “I think that sometimes you really can’t help who you fall for.”

Winry fisted a hand in his shirt and said, wavering:

“And I guess, this time, the person he fell for wasn’t me, was it?”

Al hugged her tighter, and tried to keep his own thoughts under control. He had always suspected, but had hoped anyway… In any case, this wasn’t the time for that.

“No, not this time,” he said, stroking her hair with one hand as the other arm held her tightly to his chest.

“Does Edward just… like men?” she asked, and even though Al knew she might feel better if he said yes, he couldn’t lie to her.

“Maybe,” he said, as a compromise. “I honestly don’t know. I never asked. Really, though, I think he just likes the General.”

“This is a lot to take in,” she said after a moment. “I’m just so confused, Al.”

“And hurt, I know. You have every right to be. I know that Brother felt awful after he talked to you. He couldn’t believe he had hurt you so badly, without even thinking about it.”

“I didn’t mean to make him feel awful.”

“Of course not, I’m not trying to blame you. I don’t think there’s any blame to be given.”

“I can still blame Mustang,” she said, voice steely. “He dragged Edward into all of this.”

“I think that you should talk to the General. Maybe you’ll feel differently.”

Alphonse could actually feel her pulse quicken. She leaned away from him, slowly, and looked him in the eyes.

“I don’t ever want to see that man again.” Al winced. Of course she wouldn’t. But still.

“For Ed’s sake, Winry… I’m asking you to give it a try. Brother is upset, and wandering all around the country by himself, and I really worry about him when he gets like this. I think that you talking to General Mustang might help.” He sighed. “I just want everybody to be happy. I want Brother to come home again.”

“So do I, Al,” she said.

“I’ve asked him to come back, lots. He won’t. But I think he might if you told him that the two of you needed to talk. He might come back if he thought you forgave him. But I don't think you'll be able to come to terms with all of this unless you talk to General Mustang.”

“Forgive?” asked Winry, brow furrowed. “I don’t need to forgive Ed for anything.” A pause. She set her jaw. “If you think it’ll help, I’ll talk to that man.”

Al hugged her, and stroked her hair.

*

Alphonse had given Roy and Winry the whole bottom floor of his house as a blast zone, but no amount of space could make the air between them less tense. She had chosen to meet in the library.

Roy sat at the desk, she on the couch. They watched each other.

“Hello, Ms. Rockbell,” he said, folding his hands on the table.

She looked just like her parents. He had noticed before, of course, but right in that moment the fact was more than just incidental. It clawed at him. He would never be able to forget it.

“Hi,” she said. The silence thickened.

“I understand that you had some things you wanted to discuss with me?”

“Of course I do,” she said. She was very pretty, with blonde hair and big eyes and well-muscled arms. She seemed so young, though. Was she really Edward’s age? “A lot of really weird stuff has been happening, and it always comes back to you.”

Did it? He supposed that, for her, it did.

“I hate you, you know that?” she said, and though she said it without any kind of force, it still set his stomach on edge. A chill struck him deep, at his core. Roy nodded.

“You have every right to,” he replied, his voice rough. He could do this. He deserved to hear anything she had to say.

“Damn right I do.” Pause. She locked him in that blue-eyed stare. Her voice finally wavered. “I thought… I could forget. I thought I could respect you. And then my oldest friend walks into my house all mangled and beat up and it’s your doing, and how am I supposed to forgive you?”

The words that came to his mouth were perhaps both the easiest and the hardest that he had ever had to speak.

“I’m not asking for your forgiveness,” he said, mouth dry. He laced his fingers together. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness for anything. I’m only asking for your understanding, in this specific situation. One of Edward's injuries was an accident, and I feel terrible about it. The other thing…” Roy took a breath, and swallowed hard. “It’s a different matter altogether. Ms. Rockbell, I care very much for Ed. I know how difficult all of this is to come to grips with, but please try. If he didn’t enjoy what we were doing at least as much as I did, do you really think he would allow it to continue?”

“I don’t know. I think that… if Ed were being abused by somebody he really cared about, it would never occur to him to leave. He probably wouldn’t even notice. He would probably just figure that it was what he deserved, and stick around for more.”

The idea sat, stone, in Roy’s stomach. He could imagine. At the same time… he really couldn’t. He had seen Edward in some of his worst moments, seen what was probably the last time a little blonde-haired boy had let himself cry – seen Ed in an alley with a chimera girl’s blood on his frantic hands, seen him hunched and hollow-eyed after one or another failure, watched him over the years as every last bit of his innocence had been stripped away.

That look was so familiar. But, it was familiar for a different Edward, for an explosive little boy with too much mouth for his size and a black place inside him that sometimes – only sometimes – got the better of him. The man that Roy knew now was different, stronger.

“I think that you don’t give him enough credit,” Roy replied. “I think that he’s grown up a lot in the past few years. I don’t think that’s who he is anymore.”

Winry watched him, searching.

“So tell me what’s been happening between you two.”

This, at least, Roy could manage. He felt no shame for this.

“I suppose I’ll start with the arm. Edward and I were sparring in an abandoned warehouse, but it wasn’t quite as abandoned as we thought. At least, it still had cargo in it: one of the crates was still full of gunpowder. It didn’t explode when the crate caught on fire, probably because it wasn't packed in tightly enough, but it did go up in flames very quickly, and Ed was too close. He might have been hurt worse if he hadn’t been so quick on his feet. Thank god for his agility,” Roy said. “I apologized to him, profusely, and I apologize to you as well. I know the arm was your handiwork.”

There was no forgiveness in the Rockbell girl's face, but she did look sad.

“I see,” she said. He wasn’t sure if she did or not.

“The other injuries were sustained directly afterwards. It was…” He paused. “Pleasant, for both of us,” he said, but that didn’t nearly do it justice. He could see her looking at him, judging, and knew she found him wanting. He would have to do better. “No, not pleasant – hell, it was amazing. Edward is amazing. We match each other.”

She didn’t respond: he did the only thing he could do, and continued speaking. Maybe, if he tried hard enough, words could move her.

“The man is more brilliant than I can put words to. He is the strongest person I know, both mentally and physically. Morally – well, I’ve met mountains less rigid than Edward when it comes to his principles. He constantly out-thinks me on so many levels, and yet he can be so endearingly idiotic when it comes down to it.” Roy forced himself to keep going. He could see a softening in her shoulders, in her face. “He's brilliant, and certainly never boring. He’s going to be truly great someday, if he isn't already. I’m constantly baffled by the fact that he keeps coming back to me, and grateful for it. There’s not a day that I take him for granted.

“So you see, I meant it,” Roy continued, “when I said that I care very much about him. I want to see him back here, in Central. I want to be with him again. I know that right now it’s selfish for me to be so concerned about what I want.” He kept every word steady. “But if I make him half as happy as he makes me – and I think that I might – it might not be so entirely selfish as all that. I know that he's your friend, and you want him to be happy. If the person who could make him happy were me – could you live with that? I’m asking for your permission to make things right with him, Ms. Rockbell.”

“And if I say no?”

Roy’s heart sank.

“You haven’t yet. I’m still holding on to that hope,” he replied, wry. They measured each other.

“I love Ed,” she finally burst out. “It seems like I always have. He and I were supposed to…” She wiped the back of a hand over her eyes, but Roy didn’t see any tears. “I can’t believe you would come and steal _him_ from me, too. Haven’t you taken enough from me already?”

The man felt the cut of those words, but he knew how to keep himself stoic, solid, after all these years. He had faced down far more terrible things than a little blonde girl in a library. Hadn’t he?

“I don’t think,” he began, slowly, “that Edward would consent to being stolen, and god help you if you’re trying to make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.” The well-worn books watched him, comforting in their way. “I can see that you do love him. I can’t say that I do, not right now. But, I want to have the chance to see where this could go, what it could turn into. More importantly, however, have you asked Ed what he wants?”

“No,” she replied, quiet. “I haven't been able to talk to him. I really don't know what he wants. Maybe he doesn't even know himself.” She paused. “But Al usually knows, even when Ed doesn't. And... Al approves of you two? He’s given you his blessing?”

“If he hadn’t, would I be here right now?”

She didn’t reply to that, but instead said:

“I wish you were easier to hate.” 

The twist Roy felt inside him was not unexpected. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still doing pretty well at that. But… I’ll talk to him. If he can convince me that you’re not a power-hungry monster, that you would be better for him than I would –” she kept her voice mostly calm, Roy was impressed “—then I guess I won’t stand in your way.”

The girl stood up forcefully from the couch, hands fisted by her sides. Her eyes were fierce. She looked so much like Edward, then, that Roy almost smiled. 

“But if I’m not convinced, if I think you’re even a little bit bad for Ed, then you and I are going to have this conversation again, only this time I won’t hold back.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

*

The next time Edward called his house, Winry answered the phone.

“Come home,” she said. “We need to talk.”

Could he really tell her no?

*

When Ed arrived in front of his house several days later, he found Al out in the garden, on his hands and knees as he plucked little sprouting weeds from between a bunch of yellow flowers with tall stalks. Ed had his suitcase slung over his shoulder in its usual position, and he tried out a smile for his brother, though he felt rather worse for wear. At least his clothes were relatively clean, even if he wasn't.

“Hey, Al,” he said as he swung the gate open. “Still haven’t given up the gardening thing yet, I see.”

Alphonse was on his feet in half a second. He spun around, catching his brother in a wide-eyed look before practically leaping forward to trap the man in a hug.

“Brother! I’m so happy to see you,” he said, and really sounded it. Ed smiled, tired, and hugged his brother back for a moment. When Al pulled away, his expression turned accusing. “Where have you been? Don’t you dare take off like that without telling me again! You had all of us worried sick!”

Ed winced.

“Yeah. I know,” he said. “Sorry. I was fine, though,” he said, giving the other a smile that didn’t feel quite as reassuring as he meant it to be.

“You were _not_ okay,” Al returned, putting his hands on his hips. “You still aren’t. Look at you: you’re a mess! Have you been sleeping? What have you even been out there doing?”

Ed gave a small laugh: he probably did look a bit of a mess. He had been traveling for a week now, and he had sand stuck in all his parts, whether metal or not.

“Well… I passed through some of the desert towns in the east. I checked in on Youswell, they’re doing great,” he said, running a hand through his travel-grimed bangs. “Found where Rose has been hiding out. Her kid is three now, can you believe?” he said, grinning.

Al smiled, though with less enthusiasm.

“Yes, that's wonderful, I hope I can see her soon, too. But you couldn’t have just told me that, so at least I knew? Or told Roy? Or Winry? Or _anybody?_ ” 

Ed’s stomach clenched. He knew who would be on the other side of his front door, and he would do just about anything before facing her down again.

“Sorry,” he said.

“I don’t mean to make you feel bad, Brother. Unless feeling bad will keep you from doing stupid things again. In that case, I definitely mean to make you feel bad,” Al said. He turned back to his bushes and bent over to pick up his bag of gardening tools, then thought better of it and stood up. When he turned back around, he gave his brother a serious look.

“Really, I’m just glad to see you again,” he said. “That’s all.” He stepped forward on the little cobblestone walkway. The elder brother stood still.

“Is, uh,” he began, eyeing the door with some trepidation, “Is Winry in there?”

“Yes,” said Al, carefully watching. “She’s been here for a few days.”

“Did you call her here?”

“Yeah. She really needed somebody to talk to about the whole thing, and I don't think she wanted to bring any of this up to Granny Pinako.”

“Yeah. I don't blame her.” Ed's eyes swept around the garden, looking at Al's work: flowers flattered the greenery in a carefully controlled riot of colors, a hundred different shades but each in their own proper place. He wondered if their beauty owed anything to his brother's alchemy skills. “What did you tell her?”

“Enough that she knows what's going on. Now she wants to talk to you, to get the rest of the story.” He paused. “Are you gonna be okay? I mean, really? I can be there while you talk to her, if you want,” he said, though Edward knew his brother well enough to get that Al didn’t really want to, and was just offering to be nice.

“I’ll be fine, Al.” He probably would. “I don’t need a babysitter. I can handle this on my own.”

Alphonse’s look said that he didn’t entirely believe Ed.

“Should I leave, then?” he asked, always accommodating. “I can go to the cinema, or to lunch or something, if you need space.”

“No, that’s fine. You can keep gardening, or whatever you want. You just shouldn’t have to be there for this.,” said Edward, nerves twinging, sickening him. Al gave him a sad look.

“Okay. But, you know, it might not be as bad as you think it’s going to be.”

Ed laughed, coarse and dry.

“Yeah?” he said, steeling himself for the last five steps to the door. He set down the suitcase and used his flesh hand to open the door. His right arm couldn’t do any more than just bend at the elbow. He wished he had been able to get his automail fixed before leaving – for the past week, every day had been a reminder of his crimes. “Well, thanks for the pep talk. I can handle it from here, though.”

Al gave him a small smile, and put a hand on the other’s shoulder.

“Of course you can. If you just explain things properly, I’m sure everything’ll be fine.”

“Right,” said Edward. Did he even want to explain things? Was there anything to explain? Were there any words that could make this better? He opened the door.

“Hey, I’m home,” he called out, looking around his living room. He kicked off his boots and hung his brown duster up on the wall rack, because Al had followed him in and was watching him with some expectation, then set his suitcase down again. No one responded at first: then Ed heard the sounds of feet on the upper floorboards.

Winry appeared at the top of the stairs, and the lump in his stomach turned to acid.

“Hey, Ed,” she said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Alphonse’s expression turn strained. He gave his younger brother a questioning look, but the other just smiled and shook his head. Another time.

“Hey, Winry,” said Edward, turning his eyes back to her.

“I guess I’ll just… go back outside, then?” Al said.

“Sure. Thanks, Al.”

“No problem. If you need anything, though, come get me?”

Ed nodded. The younger man disappeared back out the front door.

“I’m glad you came back,” she said. She didn’t look at all angry, but that didn’t stop Ed’s nerves. She came down the stairs.

“Yeah?” said Edward. “I guess… you wanted to talk to me.”

She looked better than he had expected, if maybe a bit tired. He wondered how many times she had cried over him, now.

“Yeah. I did.” She paused. “You want to go to the backyard, or something? I’ve been a little cooped up inside.”

Ed almost laughed. He knew how she felt. Hadn’t that been the start of the whole problem?

“If you want,” he said, picking up his boots from beside him so he didn’t track mud across the house. She walked, barefoot, through the kitchen to the back door, and he followed her.

“How have you been?” she asked.

“Ah, the usual,” he said, slipping his shoes back on as he reached the back rug. “Been around, doing stuff.”

“I see,” she said, then paused. “I’m sorry that I made you run away.”

Ed looked at her with surprise as they passed out into the backyard sunshine together. Winry sat on the singular chair, wooden and weather-beaten.

“ _You’re_ sorry? Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, and flopped down onto the ground, crosslegged. He glared at a clump of grass. “You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry about.” 

“Of course I do. I made you feel bad, and then you ran away before I had a chance to fix your arm.”

“Bad” would be one way to put it, he supposed.

“No, Winry, you don't have to apologize for anything. I ran away because I’m a coward, and because I didn’t want to have to have this conversation. The one we’re having right now.” He breathed deeply to calm himself. It didn’t work. “So let me just get this out of the way right now. I’m sorry for all the stupid shit I’ve done and said. I’m sorry I hurt you. You didn’t deserve any of this.”

“Al told me,” she said, as if she hadn’t registered his apology, “that you and Colonel – General – Mustang are in a relationship now.”

The pale ache in his throat grew.

“We were, for a little bit. I’m really sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Obviously not,” she snapped. “How could you do something so stupid? How could you do something so dangerous?”

Some part of him still wanted to defend Mustang, after all of this. He couldn’t stop it.

“He’s not dangerous. He – fuck, there’s not excusing what he’s done, I guess. It wasn’t stupid because he’s dangerous, though, it was stupid because I hurt you. It was a pretty despicable thing to do.”

Her brow furrowed – she was upset, but he couldn’t tell what had caused it, precisely.

“You’re right, it was pretty awful,” she finally said. “But I don’t really blame you. He and I talked. You… told him you couldn’t see him again, didn’t you?”

Shit, he was going to have to talk to Roy properly, in person. The man deserved at least that. Ed didn’t want to. He knew the man could convince him to come back in half a second.

“Of course I did. I couldn’t just keep fucking the man who killed your parents, could I?” he said, to finally get it out into the open. He closed his eyes, braced himself for her fury.

“I’m happy that you would do that for me,” she said, though she didn’t sound happy at all. She sounded kind of dazed, and quiet. “You always did put other people’s happiness first.” She paused, exhaled. “But I have to ask you, why did you get with him in the first place?”

Edward had the vague sensation that this was some kind of test.

“Um,” he said, trying to remember past the guilt, and the fear. “He was kind to me. He took me seriously. He knows everything I’ve ever done, and he's never judged me for it. And he's smart. He kept me on my toes.”

“You keep talking in the past tense.”

“I told you, I ended it.” 

“But you really cared about him, didn’t you. Care,” she corrected herself. “You really care about him.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, because what else could he say to that? “This whole thing is so fucked up.”

“I have to say that yeah, it’s a little messed up from where I’m standing.” She cocked her head to the side, straightened her shoulders. “How’s your back?” 

Ed flushed.

“It’s fine,” he said to the grass. “Better than ever. Was never that bad in the first place.”

“He told me that both of you enjoyed whatever you were doing that got you those cuts,” she said, piercing. “That sounds like a rationalization to me. I don’t understand how anybody could enjoy that.”

“I don’t get it either,” he said. Wires crossed in his brain, maybe. Psychological illness. He’d always known he was fucking nuts.

“So, was he lying?”

“No,” he said, face burning. “He was telling the truth. I asked for it. I liked it. Don’t blame him.”

She stood up and moved to sit on the grass beside him. He turned his eyes up to her – she looked so sad.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. So… he's not abusing you. You're willing. And you care about him.” She made a quiet noise, a thinking noise. “If all of these problems with me had never come up, would you still want to be in a relationship with him?”

“Um, probably,” said Edward, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Do you just like men?”

Ed shrugged and hunched over further. He put an arm around his upright knee.

“I dunno. I hadn’t really thought about it.” Sex had never really been high on his priority list. Through most of his life he had noticed attractive people in mostly an aesthetic sense, not in a sexual one. He had masturbated, of course, though with no real relish, and had never really considered sex with another person to be an option on the table before Mustang had come calling. He honestly didn’t know how to answer her.

“Please tell me that you do, even if it isn’t true,” she said, her voice wavering for the first time. Ed looked up in surprise. “That might make it a little easier for me to deal with the fact that you picked him, not me.”

As tears began to fill her eyes, everything suddenly fell in place for him. He understood why she looked at him sometimes like she expected something from him; why her smiles made him happy, but also a little bit nervous. She was in love with him, and while he loved her very much, he didn’t feel the same way.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and reached out for her, pulling her into his arms. She smelled like scented shampoo and machine oil. “I’m so sorry, Winry. I didn’t know. I can choose you, if you want. We could make it work.” She buried her face in his shoulder.

“But you don’t love me now, do you?”

“No,” he said, quiet. “I don’t. But I would try, if you wanted.”

She gave a brief laugh, and turned her face up to him.

“Oh, Ed. Of course you would. You would try, and you would keep trying until the world ended, thinking that maybe if you tried hard enough you could make it happen. But we’ve known each other for all of our lives, and you still don’t love me. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen. And if it's not going to happen, then I don't want you sticking around with me, lying to me every day that it's fine, you're happy, you love me... That would be miserable for both of us.”

Edward held her in silence, there on the grass. After a few moments, she sat up and smiled at him, tear-tracks still gleaming on her cheeks as they dried.

“Alright. I guess I can live with that,” she said. “I’m glad I know, now, so I can move on.” She paused. “So, promise me that you’ll go make things right with General Mustang. I may not understand what you two have, but I understand that it made you happy. I’m not so selfish that I could get in the way of that.”

Ed stared at her in shock.

“What?”

“You heard me. Go talk to him. Make it better.” A pause. “All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. You’re not going to be happy with me, so I shouldn’t hold you back from being happy with someone else. Right?”

Edward’s heart hurt. He wished he did love her. She was so much stronger than he was, a thousand times better of a person. He hadn’t thought for a second that she could ever forgive him.

“Are you sure?” he asked, not sure if he hoped she would keep to it or change her mind.

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the past several days. I just had to make sure that everything was alright, from your own mouth. So it’s fine. You have my blessing. Just,” she said, sitting up straight, “let me have this one thing.”

Then she leaned in slowly, and kissed him. They stayed like that for a moment, his shirt clenched in her hand, and her lips soft on his.

He held her to him. It was the very least he could do.

She pulled away.

“Okay. I’m good now,” she said, smiling. Ed would have been convinced if he hadn’t known better. “I can live with that.”

“You’re amazing,” he said. He stood up, and extended a hand to help her to her feet as well. “I honestly can’t believe you,” he said, and smiled at her. 

“Yeah, well, keep telling me that,” she said with a short laugh. “By the way, I have something for you,” she said.

They went inside together. Ed waited at the kitchen table for her to come back.

When she did, she had a brand new automail arm in her hands.

“Don’t you break it this time,” she said, warning. “Don’t you dare.” 

Ed grinned, wide and thoughtless, and for the first time felt maybe a little bit forgiven.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, and took it from her.

***

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. And so that's done. Next chapter, back to our regularly scheduled porn!
> 
> If you liked, please tell me so! I'm not actually quite finished writing the next chapter yet, and I need a bit of encouragement! There also may be a seriously porny epilogue type thing, if I'm feeling up to it.
> 
> Actually, I've been struggling with writing the next chapter for over two months now. So far, no dice. It's not even done being written, much less edited or anything. I don't know when the next chapter is going to be out. Could be a week from now, could be a month. 
> 
> My writing engine runs on your kind words.
> 
> Thanks for reading <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to KelzKori for reading my shit drafts, and all the ones that followed, and not judging me for said shittiness. Boyfriend of the year award goes to Avine_sol, who is totally straight, ships RoyAi hard, and can't imagine why I'd want to think about Ed naked but soldiered on through this fic anyway to give me ambulances full of love and support.
> 
> (Secrets revealed: I think about Ed naked a lot.)

**Chapter 10**

 

*

Al came back into the house from his gardening work all covered in dirt, his bag of tools slung over his shoulder, to find Winry lying on his couch, on her back, arm over her eyes.

“Hey,” he offered, quietly, not wanting to disturb her if she didn’t want to be disturbed, but not wanting to leave her alone, either.

“Hey,” she said, after a moment, though she didn't move at all.

“So… how did your talk go?” Al asked, taking off first one muddy shoe, then the other, and setting his gardening tools down next to them.

“It... well, I think Ed’s gone off to General Mustang’s place to apologize, to try and get back together with him again.”

Al had the confusing experience of feeling both relief and acute sympathetic pain at the same time.

He might not have understood everything she was going through, but he did understand how it felt to be in love with someone who didn’t love him back.

“I see. Are you okay with that?” he asked, walking over to the couch and sitting down on the armrest, next to her feet.

“As okay as I can be, I guess,” she said, her forearm still obscuring her eyes from view. “I don’t get the whole thing. I really don’t. I want Edward to be happy, I just wish he didn’t feel like he needed to get beat up in order to feel that way. I wish he wanted to be with me. I wish even more that if he didn’t want to be with me, he also didn’t want to be with that _man._ Does that make me a bad person?”

“Not at all,” Al said, without having to think about it. “You’re a very good person. Most people wouldn’t have been able to listen past their own fear when confronted with something as strange and seemingly disturbing as what brother and General Mustang are doing. It’s a pretty scary thing. But you listened until you understood what they were saying, even if you didn’t understand why they were doing all of this. Most people can’t do that, or don’t. Not everybody would have been able to let brother do what would make him happy, regardless of what it meant for them. Not everybody can love that unselfishly.”

“But I want to be selfish!” she burst out, like it pained her. “I don’t want to let him go off so Mustang can beat on him. I really want to just tell him no, you can’t do that, screw Mustang and _everything,_ let _me_ make you happy.” She paused, pulled her arm off of her face and let it lie by her side. She still didn’t look at Al. “I wish I could. I thought about doing it. I really am horrible.”

“Everybody thinks those sorts of things sometimes. You didn’t act on them, though, and that's important. It’s not what you think that matters, it’s what you actually do. Your conscience wouldn’t let you do something like that. I know it.”

She pulled herself into a sitting position and gave him a faint smile.

“Thanks. I’m glad you have such faith in me.”

“It’s not that,” Al replied, with a smile. “You keep proving me right, again and again. That’s not faith, it’s fact.”

“Really, thanks.”

Al, disarmed by a sudden thought, got to his feet.

“Let’s go out somewhere,” he said, brightly, propelled by this new idea. “I’ve heard that there’s some kind of spring carnival happening on the southern outskirts of the city. It sounds really fun! I think nothing would do you more good than a day outside, enjoying the sun, enjoying the people.”

“I actually think it might rain. It looked like there was a storm coming in, earlier.”

“Well, then we’ll hide out under one of the tents and eat ‘till the rain passes. Or we can just wear the kind of clothes it’s okay to get wet in. It’s warm outside, it might be a good time to go enjoy getting wet!”

“Thanks, Al. I’m not feeling very energetic at the moment, though. I might not be very good company.”

“You’re always good company,” Al said, with conviction. “And I wouldn’t mind, anyway. You just look like you could use a change of scenery, you know?” He stepped over to stand by her, and extended a hand.

“Yeah, I guess I could,” she said. She took his hand in her own, and stood.

*

When Roy arrived home that evening he was soaking wet, as it had begun to pour halfway through his walk home from the office, and Edward Elric was sitting on his front stoop, equally drenched. The younger man leaned back against the brick wall, eyes closed, so still that he could have been asleep.

He bit back his surprise, kept himself collected despite the rain.

“Hey,” Edward said, as Roy drew closer. He lifted his head to look at the older man, and smiled. 

“What are you doing on my porch?” Roy asked. Ed frowned and Roy backtracked. “I mean, I thought you would have transmuted the door open and gone inside. It’s raining,” he added, feeling stupid the moment it came out of his mouth.

“No shit, Mustang,” Ed said, with a laugh. “Well spotted. But, I just thought I’d try out some of that social-convention shit you’re always going on about.”

Roy smiled.

“Really. Well then, may I invite you inside?” he asked over the sound of the rain, his voice lighter than it had been since Ed left.

“You had damn well better,” said Edward, standing up. He was beautiful, drenched to the bone, with his braid draped over his shoulder onto his chest, plastered there by the water.

Roy wondered if he should move to touch the other man. He wanted to. He made an instant decision and bridged the gap between them, mouth moving to cover Ed’s, hands roving, touching, needing, reassuring him of the other’s physical presence.

He savored the look of surprise on the other man’s face, and savored even more the way Ed froze, then kissed him back with equal force, clutching at the front of Roy’s jacket like he might die if he let go.

They stood wrapped together, one creature, in the pouring rain, and made up for lost time.

When they finally pulled apart, each man out of breath and shivering at the loss of the other’s heat, Ed grinned at him.

“Missed me that much, huh?” the blonde said. Roy stepped forward to his door and unlocked it.

“Get inside,” he said, with some amusement.

Ed did as asked without comment. He turned around in the entryway, dripping a small lake onto Roy’s wooden floors.

“I really am amused that you would sit on my stoop in the rain rather than come inside,” Roy commented, taking his jacket off and hanging it up on the rack by the door.

“Eh, well, considering everything that’s happened recently, I figured I’d better not push my luck, you know?” the blonde replied, looking a bit awkward. Roy couldn’t help staring at the way Edward’s drenched clothing clung to him. That bulky jacket ruined the clean lines of the man's body, but Roy would soon have it off.

“You know you’re always welcome in my house, Edward,” he said, lighthearted. “Now, what brings you here? May I take your jacket?”

“Oh, uh, sure,” the younger man said. He clapped his hands together, presumably to transmute the water out of his clothing, but before he could put his hands to his chest, Roy said:

“Wait, don’t.” Ed looked up, frowning. “I rather like the look of you wet,” Roy said, voice low and full of meaning.

Ed’s look of confusion resolved back into a grin.

“Yeah?” he asked, then took off his jacket and hung it on the wall rack himself.

“Yes,” Roy said. “You never did answer my question, though.” He turned back around to face the other man, anticipation throbbing in his gut. “What brings you to my humble abode this evening? May I assume from your behavior that you’ve come to your senses?”

“Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘senses.’ I’m probably a little bit crazy, but we knew that already,” the younger man said, and laughed. “But whatever. I came here to apologize.” In a second, he drew in on himself, became smaller. “I, uh – I talked to Winry. She says that you two talked, too?” Edward asked. His expression was deep, many-layered, and Roy saw something in it that made him hurt.

“We did,” Roy said, and Ed’s look became one of – pity?

“I’m glad,” said Edward, not sounding glad at all. “No, really,” he said, in response to Roy’s obvious disbelief. “I am. I know it must have been really hard for you. For both of you.” A pause. “Thanks for doing that for me.”

“It’s not a problem,” Roy replied. “I wanted to.”

“Still, couldn’t’ve been easy. So thanks. You would have been well within your rights to just call all this off and never speak to me again. I was a total dick for not telling you what was going on. I was just afraid that you’d convince me not to leave.”

A loud laugh took Roy by surprise, and he found it was his own.

“Me, convince you of anything? Edward, I’ve been trying to do that for years, to no effect. Of all the stubborn, bull-headed people I’ve ever met, you are the worst.”

The smile Ed flashed at him was toothy, dangerous.

“And don’t you fucking forget it,” he said, then strode over to flop down on Roy’s couch and get that sopping wet instead of his floor. 

“Believe me, I haven’t,” Roy murmured, and walked over to his fireplace to take logs from the small stack beside it and pile them neatly in the metal grate.

“But seriously,” said Edward from behind him, “I didn’t want you to make me change my mind. Well, no. I guess I wanted you to, and that was the problem.” The last log laid, Roy took his glove out of his pants pocket and put it on. One snap, and the wood began to blaze. He turned back around. “I’m way easier to convince when I want to be convinced.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s true for everyone,” Roy said.

Ed nodded. Roy moved over to the armchair and took it, crossing his legs and folding his hands over his knee.

“So, I’m sure you must have guessed that Winry more or less gave us her blessing,” Edward told him, making a show of nonchalance. “Or at least her acceptance, I guess. That girl’s really incredible.”

“Yes, she seems that way.”

“Yeah. But when she and I talked, I almost got the sense that she had already made up her mind, or something. I mean, she still didn’t really want me to come back here, but she had already kind of decided that she was going to let me anyway. What did you say to her to make her change her mind? She’s almost as bad as me on the 'stubborn' front.”

Roy thought back.

“Well, I suppose I managed to convince her that what I feel for you is more than just lust. Though I must say,” Roy said, leaning back and putting on his practiced smirk as he allowed his eyes to rove up and down Edward’s body, “lust is a major factor.”

He could make himself behave, but perhaps not for much longer – not if Edward kept looking at him with that flush on his face.

“Is that right?” Edward asked, tone turning to one of invitation, of challenge, even as he fought down his obvious nervousness.

“Yes, Fullmetal,” Roy replied, slipping into his role easily. “I think all of us understand that only I can give you what you want.”

That elicited a visible shudder from the other man. Roy pushed right on past it, letting the voice fall away again. Now was not the time for that.

“I missed you,” he said, finally. This brief attempt at honesty made Edward squirm in an entirely different way, one that Roy really found just as endearing.

“Fuckin’ sap,” Ed mumbled, shifting a bit in his seat even as he gave Roy a little smile. “Don’t go all mushy on me now or anything.”

“Alright,” Roy replied, quite agreeably. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t.” Then, more seriously: “So… you’re okay with this? Honestly? You and Ms. Rockbell tied everything up?” 

Ed nodded. “Yeah. I mean… If she's okay with me being here, then there are no issues on my end. My problem with all of this was never personal. I get it. Shit happens, you know?” he said, eyes steady, and sad. “You’re a good person. She’s a good person. People make mistakes. They do shit that they’re never gonna be able to take back, and I – well, I would be a fucking hypocrite to judge you for that.”

Roy wanted to say something that would comfort the man, but didn’t know if that moment was the time, if it would be the right thing to do. 

“Thank you.”

Ed's brow furrowed.

“For what?”

“For forgiving me. For knowing the worst things that I've ever done, and coming back anyway.”

The look Ed gave Roy then was so ragged that the pain of it hit Roy like a spear to his gut. The silence dragged on. 

“Me forgiving you wasn't an issue. It was never you I was running away from. Okay? I’ve done bad shit too. My hands aren’t exactly clean.”

“Edward...”

“Anyway,” said Ed with forced cheer, cutting off anything Roy had been about to say, “I guess the point is that, yeah, we’ve got it worked out. She made me come back here to Central, so we could talk about it. If she hadn’t made me, I probably wouldn’t have come back, at least not for a while yet. But I’m happy I did,” he said, then paused and cocked his head to the side. “She deserves to be happy. I can’t give her that. But… you deserve to be happy too. And maybe, you know, I can do that for you.”

The blonde blushed, just a hint.

“I don't think she was terribly concerned with my happiness,” Roy said.

Ed shrugged. “Well, no. But I was.” A pause. “I’m glad you didn’t give up on me.”

Roy laughed.

“You are the best thing that has happened to me in a very long time. Why in hell would I give that up so easily?” he said, because there hadn’t been enough sap in this conversation already. Ed’s flush deepened.

“Yeah, well, whatever,” he said. “I’m back now.” He stood up, crossed his arms, and relaxed.

“Anyway, I’m fuckin’ starved, haven’t had nothin’ but train food for three days. You got anything? I’m gonna die if I don’t get something in my stomach in the next five minutes.”

And because it would have been improper to grab Edward right at that moment and fuck him over the back of the couch, Roy smiled and said: “We can’t have that, can we? But can you wait for thirty? I make a delicious stir fry.”

“Thirty minutes?” He thought for a moment. “Sure, I can handle that. But it had better be good.”

*

They managed to keep their hands off of each other all through the cooking and eating of dinner with some difficulty, at least on Ed’s part, though he would guess from Roy’s occasional sidelong glances that the older man’s thoughts had been drifting in more or less the same direction as his own.

“Yeah, that was pretty damn good,” he said, looking at his empty bowl with some regret. “I’m impressed. I’ll have to get you to cook for me more often.”

“You flatter me. I know from your expense reports that you’ve tasted gourmet food from all across Amestris, so I’m glad to know mine passes muster.”

Ed made a face.

“You still remember that shit?”

“Of course, Edward. I had many an argument with the people higher up on the chain of command than I about whether that was an appropriate use of our funds. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment. I think the next order of business should probably be a shower,” Roy said, with – to his credit – only a hint of amusement.

“Oh. Yeah. Right,” Ed replied, trying not to think about how he must look, with days of travel grime on him that the rain hadn’t entirely washed off. “Can I use yours?”

“Of course. On one condition, though: that I’m allowed to share it with you.” 

Ed frowned.

“Sorry, what?”

“One shower, two people, no clothing. It’s very simple.”

“But I’m all dirty and shit.”

Roy laughed.

“Thus, the shower. If I didn’t think you’d want one, we would be going straight to my bedroom.” A pause: Roy’s face straightened. “Unless you don’t want to, of course.”

“What? No! I mean, yeah, right – shower,” he said, and pretended all of that had come out smooth and competent, like he had meant for it to. Roy just smirked at him from across the table – or maybe it wasn’t a smirk at all, because he stood, slowly, walked to the younger man, closed his hand on the front of Ed’s shirt, and guided him to his feet just in time to press their lips together, slowly, like he meant it.

They didn’t ever stop touching each other, kissing with fury as they began to move in the direction of the stairs. Shirt buttons came undone between overeager, clumsy fingers; clothes were left in sodden heaps on the floor, on the stairs, in the hall.

When they finally made it to the bathroom, neither wore anything more than just their boxers. Ed moaned as the older man slid a hand over his clothed erection, his eyes fluttering shut as he pressed his head to Roy's shoulder. The pressure became firmer, more insistent, and Ed began to move his hips in small circles, seeking, grinding – his breathing became more ragged – 

"Don't you dare," Roy said, pulling back suddenly, just before Ed hit the edge. The younger man whined at the terrible loss of contact and gave his lover a pleading look. It resulted in no pity from the other man, just a faint amusement. "I have many things planned for tonight, and no intention whatsoever of letting you finish so soon."

"Have a fucking heart, you bastard," Edward said, without any real vitriol. Roy laughed.

That was when Ed noticed the other man's state of undress: stripped to his boxers, miles of toned muscle on display. He felt his face heat, his heartbeat pounding, because he had known that sex was on the table, that it was probably going to happen tonight, but still it somehow hasn't occurred to him that he was going to get to see all of _that._

And Roy called _him_ beautiful. Ed didn't know how he could even be measured on the same scale as Roy Mustang.

The man had turned around and bent over a bit to mess about with the shower knobs, giving Ed, for once, the perfect view. Once the shower was fixed to his liking, he turned back around and then, without warning, his boxers were on the floor and he was there, naked and pale and gloriously erect. Then he smiled, and for whatever reason that made Ed’s pulse quicken. He could hear the blood rushing through his ears.

Edward stood there, frozen, staring, as the steam began to billow out of the shower to fill the room with its wet heat.

"Well?" Roy prompted, mouth quirking. "Are you going to undress, or am I going to have to be naked alone?"

"I've never seen you without your clothes on before," Ed said, by way of explanation. He had been naked in front of Mustang before, sure: but that had been a different situation, and somehow it had been much easier when it had been an order. He hadn't had to make the decision, to wonder if he was doing it right, if he was up to par. “And it’s weird gettin’ naked in front of you.”

It was just strange to be here, together. That was all. He wasn't at all intimidated by the other man's flawless chest; his well-sculpted neck; his face, almost beyond “handsome” into the realm of “pretty.” Ed wasn't at all self-conscious about the mass of scars all across his body, the way they grew and melded into each other to make his skin thick as armor at the edges of his automail ports.

Roy got a look then, a tightening to the corner of his eyes, that Ed didn't like. He closed the distance between them. 

"Oh, Edward," he said, and then knelt down, fingers on the band of Ed's boxers. He kissed the skin right above them, lips tracing up to Ed's navel and then down again, to the hollow by his right hipbone, then the other one. "Trust me when I say you’re gorgeous, and that there is nothing in the world I want more right now than to get you out of these clothes."

Ed snorted. "What if you could be Fuhrer right this instant?"

"That can wait. I'll be Fuhrer after I have slowly and thoroughly debauched you."

Ed shivered, and Roy just looked smug. His tongue returned to its former activities, making the skin of Ed's stomach spark and catch fire until all awkwardness evaporated into a haze of desire. He fisted a hand in Roy's hair, groaned, and said:

"Well, go on then. Debauch me."

Ed could feel Roy's smirk against his skin, and he hadn’t thought he could be more turned on until that moment.

"If you insist," he said, and Ed couldn't even manage to feel shame as the man slid his boxers down his legs – just an intense relief, coupled with anticipation.

The sound Ed made when Roy's tongue flickered out over his newly-freed erection was very nearly embarrassing. He didn't let himself thrust forwards – he knew this was a tease, nothing more – but the effort of restraining himself was almost too much.

Roy stood again, entirely too self-satisfied, and Ed resolved to do something that would wipe that smirk off of the man's face. He would figure it out eventually.

The general extended a hand as if to help Ed into the shower. Ed huffed – he was perfectly capable of taking a shower without help, thanks – and stepped over the rim of the bathtub without taking the man’s hand. He turned around and offered his hand back to Roy, who laughed and took it, stepping onto the slick surface with care.

“You’re always so proud,” Roy said, running fingertips up the steel of Edward's neck. Then, he pressed forward, pinning Ed's body to the tiled wall with his own. He bent over, speaking directly into Ed's ear: the sensation sent shocks to his groin, pressed hard up against Roy's thigh. “I love it. When I think about how you crawled to me that night, how you called me 'sir' and hated it but did it anyway, how you _loved_ it and hated that you loved it, I just want to fuck you wherever I can take you,” he growled, hands sliding up Ed's torso, skating over a nipple, making Ed gasp and jump and then lean in for more. “So many times I've come in my own hand with that image in mind, thinking of your body and your voice and your eyes. Every night I remember the way you looked then, and I want you so badly.”

Ed's mouth dried up, heedless of the stream of water on his body and the clouds of moisture in the air. He knew that he probably should reply, then, say something equally sexy, equally brilliant, but his mind blanked. Goddammit, what could he possibly say that would compare with that, anyway? He could tell Roy that he had taken to touching himself very nearly every time he was alone because remembering the sound of the general's voice telling him _I want to come on your face_ made Ed rock hard whether he wanted it to or not. The memory pooled heat and shame in his gut in a way that thrilled him. He could say that the sight of Major General Roy Mustang, in his uniform or out of it, with that air of absolute control about him was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; he never fantasized about anything but that, anymore. He could say that he would wear a collar if Roy wanted him to, and how he wished the thought didn't make him hard as hell. He didn't.

“Shit,” he said, instead, as Roy's mouth descended on his neck. He whimpered, pressed their bodies together, ground against Roy's thigh as it slipped between his legs. Judging by the heated groan the man gave in response, Ed was doing just fine, even if fancy words weren't his strong suit. He threaded fingers through black hair and held on. Even though he had done this before, again and again, it still turned off every rational thought he had.

“Your way with words is simply astonishing,” Roy said, in between kisses, as he worked his way down to the younger man's collarbone. 

“Shut up,” Edward said, snaking a hand between their bodies to find Roy's cock. The angle was awkward, cramped, but the look on his lover's face as he closed his fingers around it made the discomfort more than worth it. “You knew me before we started this whole thing, so you don't get to make fun of me for it now.”

Roy groaned into his shoulder as Ed's hand found the perfect pressure, the perfect rhythm, the sound low enough as to almost be masked by the steady, warm thrum of the water around them as it coursed in curls and ribbons down entwined bodies. Ed grazed his teeth across the shell of Roy's ear, nipping, licking stripes on the edge of it.

“You had better,” Roy said, before a soft noise from his own mouth interrupted him, “stop that now, before I get too excited.”

Ed grinned, and didn't stop.

“But I want you excited.”

“I thought you... mm, wanted a shower.”

“I'm having one, aren't I?”

“I can wash your hair for you,” Roy said, without too much energy, like he wasn't sure whether he actually wanted Ed to stop or not. “You might like it.”

“If you want,” Ed replied, noncommittal. When Roy stepped back again his expression was filled with a piercing need. He leaned in to kiss the younger man on the lips, gently, chastely – but before Ed really had a chance to respond in kind, Roy had bent over for his shampoo and begun to dispense it onto his hand.

“Turn around,” he said, in that voice that made Ed shiver. He did as asked.

The touch of fingers on the back of his head almost made him jump, the cool wet of the shampoo a startling contrast to the warmth of the water. Roy started with a very light pressure, tiny circles through his hair, and once he got over the sheer weirdness of it his head began to tingle. Each successive motion of Roy's deft hands left more of that humming feeling in his scalp – warm, pleasurable, utterly soothing. Ed made a noise deep in his chest and wondered how such a simple thing could feel so blessedly amazing.

“Feels good?” Roy rumbled, and when he moved the tip of his erect cock brushed across Ed's back.

“Your hands're 'mazing.” 

The older man chuckled.

“I thought you might enjoy it. Someday I'll give you a full massage; we can see how you like that.”

“Mm,” replied Ed, as Roy rinsed the lather from his hair. He barely even noticed as Roy moved from his scalp to his body, running the bar of soap across his skin, the motion followed by the slow, sensual sweep of a hand. He melted back, supported entirely by his lover's body. Then, after every inch of him had been thoroughly cleaned, he gave a stroke to Ed's cock, strong, sure – the other hand slid between his legs to toy at his entrance.

Ed couldn't even manage the effort it would take to tense up as Roy's finger traced down the cleft of his ass, up again. It was maybe a little strange to feel fingers there, though not entirely unpleasant, and he wouldn't have really minded anything at all in this state.

“But for now,” he said, pushing his body up against Ed's back, his erection entirely unaffected by its brief neglect, “I have some other things in mind.”

“Oh yeah?” Ed asked as Roy’s hand slid down his cock – a steady, brilliant pressure. “What kind of other things?”

“The kind of things that are going to make you scream my name,” he said, voice low, rough, as one finger circled around Ed’s entrance as the other hand continued to pump his cock. “You’re going to feel like you’re going to die of pleasure, and then you’re going to come harder than you’ve ever come in your life, and then I’m going to do it all over again. Are we done here?”

Ed swallowed, glad Mustang was supporting most of his weight.

“So done,” he said. Roy chuckled and reached over to turn off the water. 

This time, Ed did transmute them dry, so they wouldn’t have to bother with things like towels, though Roy’s slow, relentless attention to his cock made careful concentration on alchemy very difficult. 

It might have zapped his alchemical skill, but it kept him fucking hard all the way from the bathroom to the bedroom. Then, he found himself laying flat on the bed, legs splayed apart, feet still on the floor, with Roy towering over him. His predatory stare made Ed’s now neglected erection throb.

“Oh, the things I want to do to you, Edward Elric,” the general said, voice a low purr. He knelt down on the floor, right in front of Ed’s cock, and licked his lips: the younger man gave a groan of anticipation – 

But then, that perfect mouth went somewhere entirely unexpected. Edward tensed, froze, as he felt Mustang’s tongue on his ass, stroking, circling gently.

“Relax,” the man said between strokes, moving a hand up to pay attention to the younger man's cock again. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

Ed squirmed, entirely unsure of whether he liked the sensation or not. On the one hand, it sent sparks of pleasure up to his groin – and on the other, it was fuckin bizarre, and he really just wanted to pull away and do something normal again.

“How’m I supposed to relax when you’re doin’ something so weird?”

Roy lifted his head and gave Ed a crooked smile.

“Just trust me. I'll make it good for you, I promise,” he said, then went back down between Ed's legs again. Ed tried to relax, tried not to think about it – a task that was made much easier when Roy’s hand took up a rhythm on his cock that matched the rhythm of the man's mouth, and apparently Ed's body did like it because he found himself whimpering, writhing, under Mustang’s tongue.

“Mmmm, not so bad, is it?” Roy said, then closed his lips around the entrance and gave it a gentle suck. Ed let out a sharp noise as the hand on his cock stroked down, harder, and Roy began to speed up his pace. The pleasure in him grew, building on itself, and all Ed could do was rock back and forth between mouth and hand, not sure which one he wanted more but unable to stop moving, or moaning, or clutching at Roy’s hair.

“Oh,” he said, then couldn’t see anything anymore as he came with a wordless cry all over himself, all over the bed, his body pulsing, clenching, throbbing in the force of his release.

Roy didn’t miss a beat. When Ed regained coherent thought, he found Roy lapping at his stomach, cleaning the blonde’s come off with his amazing tongue.

If he hadn’t come such a very short time ago, the sight would have made him hard as hell. As it was, he groaned, let his eyes fall shut.

“You seemed to enjoy that,” the older man said, self-satisfaction evident in his voice. “How are you feeling?”

“Mmgh,” replied Edward, though he had meant to say something like “good” or “amazing” or “Fuck, you’re good at that.” Maybe he could manage in a minute.

“Don’t get too comfortable there, Edward. We aren’t done. You haven’t screamed my name yet,” Roy growled, and Ed could feel the hard plane of the other man’s stomach sliding up along his own, just before a wet mouth slipped over his nipple, sucked gently but just hard enough.

Edward gasped despite himself as the sensation sent shocks down into his belly. Roy's tongue circled around it, then flicked it, leaving it hard and sensitive in the wake. The only thing Ed could really do, still riding the aftershocks of his orgasm and already feeling like he was going to be hard again if this kept up for much longer, was grab the back of Roy's head and hold it to himself. 

Roy's mouth slid over to his other nipple, leaving warm, wonderful sensations behind it, then moved up to his neck again. Ed groaned.

“Isn't it, nn, time that I did you?” he asked, between heavy breaths.

“No,” Roy said, rumbling against the skin of Ed's neck. “It isn't. Tonight is about you. It's your first time to actually be in bed with me, and I intend to blow your mind.”

“Feelin' pretty blown already.” Roy's mouth moved up to work at the spot right under his jaw, which they had learned made Ed whimper constantly until he moved on. After far too short a time, the man did so, and slid to press kisses to the corners of Ed's mouth. “But I don't wanna be selfish or anything.”

The older man chuckled, and moved his hand down to press at Ed's cock, which twitched in response.

“I think you severely underestimate how much it turns me on to hear you when you come with my mouth on you. Trust me, I'm doing just fine,” he said, and pressed his crotch into Edward's leg to prove just how fine that part of him was. “And I'll get mine soon,” he said, with such fervent, predatory conviction that Ed hissed in a breath and felt himself begin to harden again.

“Oh, back already?” Roy asked, as he increased the wonderful pressure on the younger man's erection. “Aren't the young resilient. You're really desperate for it, aren't you?”

“Shut up, Mustang,” he said, even as he became fully erect in Roy's hand. The man gave him a squeeze, and he whimpered. “Oh – shit, you really make it hard for me to talk.”

“Mmm,” the general agreed, smirking. “And now that I’ve gotten you all relaxed…” The low, promising tone of his voice kindled anticipation in the air. Edward’s heartbeat quickened, if that was even possible. “I have to ask. Do you want me to fuck you tonight?” 

The younger man laughed, breathless, and thrust up into his lover’s hand.

“Idiot, do you seriously think I’d be here if I didn’t?”

“Well, one can never be too sure,” he said, and smiled down at Ed.

Roy reached over to the bedside table and slid the drawer open, fumbled about for something, then drew out a little metal pot. He unscrewed the top, then dipped a finger into the container: it came away with what looked like a clear gel. Ed’s brow furrowed.

“What’s that?” he asked, as Roy rubbed the stuff between his thumb and fingers. “What are you doing?”

“This is a lubricant. I’m warming it, so it’s not entirely a shock.”

“A lubricant? Why?”

Edward could see Roy trying very hard not to betray his thoughts. The younger man flushed in preemptory embarrassment.

“Are you unaware of the mechanics of sex between men?” he asked, and though his voice was carefully neutral, Ed could see traces of amusement in his face.

Or maybe that was just Ed’s imagination. He had promised not to assume that everything Roy said was an attack. _Okay, Ed. What were the actual words that Mustang said?_ Well, he had just asked whether Ed knew about the details of sex, which was a pretty reasonable question given the circumstances. Part of him wanted to bluster that yeah, of course he did, what the fuck do you think you’re implying? But he didn’t know, and he wasn’t about to ruin this evening by being a stupid fuck.

He took a deep breath. He had promised he would be reasonable, less belligerent, more considerate. He could do this. He had promised.

“I get the gist of it,” he said, unable to hide his embarrassment even though he knew he had no reason to feel that way. There was no shame in not knowing a thing, as long as you tried to find out. “I just didn’t know there was extra... stuff involved.”

“Well, this,” Roy said, finally moving his slick hand between Ed’s legs to toy at the cleft of his ass, right at his entrance, “is to make it more pleasant for both parties. It can hurt without proper preparation,” he said, even as one of his fingers began a slow massage around the tight ring of muscle he found there. Ed tightened, shivered at the contact on skin that had so recently been a source of such pleasure. His other hand found Ed’s erection again and stroked down it, slow.

“Oh,” said Edward, more as a response to the gentle dip of that finger inside his entrance rather than to the words themselves. Another stroke to his cock, then another short penetration.

The sensation strengthened the aftershocks of his recent pleasure, warming him – nice, but also somehow uncomfortable. Another, deeper press: Ed made a face, because what else was he supposed to do when there was something going up his ass? 

“Hurts?” Roy asked, withdrawing his hand again to reapply the lube.

“No, ‘sjust weird.” 

“Don’t worry, it gets better very shortly.” His finger began its slow motion in Ed’s ass again, sliding a bit deeper each time. “You’re half there already,” he purred, before his mouth came down to offer lips to the head of Ed’s cock.

And then, something entirely different happened. He almost whimpered in disappointment as that mouth left him, would have done if he hadn’t immediately felt Roy's finger curl inside him: it touched something that made him spark down to his fingertips, something that made the keening wail that tore from his throat not only unembarrassed but absolutely necessary, non-negotiable. He thought hazily that if Roy hadn’t stopped with the – tongue, the mouth, then he might have just come right then.

He nearly came off the bed, arching his back, pressing himself onto that finger: it drew back and then thrust into him again, striking the same sensation in him, sharp and hot as flint on steel. His hands twisted in the sheets – sweat beaded on his neck, on his stomach – yet another stroke drew senseless noises from him, his mouth hanging open and eyes fallen shut.

“God, Edward,” Roy said, and fuck if the man didn’t sound nearly as turned on as Ed himself was. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me, how much you’re testing me right now, do you?”

Ed tried to reply but found himself unable to, mouth working silently around distant words. He managed only another wanton noise as the feeling of fullness increased – another finger? Two? He couldn’t tell: the pressure intensified the sensations all over his body.

“Fuck. _Fuck._ Oh god, _Roy_ –” he heard himself saying, body unable to stop moving, writhing under his lover’s touch.

“Christ, Ed,” Roy said, and when Ed forced his eyes open, what he saw there – Roy Mustang, staring at him with an intense lust, flushed down to his chest, stroking his own cock as he watched the picture Ed made – was so bewildering that he had to close his eyes again just to stay sane. “I’m sorry. I wanted to prepare you more, but it appears that I’ve found the limits of my patience.”

“Yes. Don’t wait. Fuck me,” said Edward. He heard a groan, and only noticed the disappearance of the fingers for a second before he felt the head of Roy’s cock press there, at his entrance.

“As always, I am helpless to your whims,” the man said, low and rough, then pressed in.

There was more of Roy than Ed expected there to be: he felt full, almost painfully so, and the slow inward slide left a faint burn. After too long, Roy was sheathed entirely inside him, and even through his discomfort Ed took a moment of pleasure in knowing that the sweat that drenched the other man’s skin was entirely _his_ doing.

After a few quiet moments, when they had adjusted to each other, Ed wrapped his arms around his lover and pressed hands to his back, urging him to move, because that felt normal, right. Roy obliged without a second of hesitation: the burn where they joined intensified, almost to the point of pain, then lessened on the next thrust, then lessened again, and again. His body remembered the intense pleasure he had been feeling minutes ago, and sparked faint traces of it in him again.

He cried out as the next thrust hit that same spot inside him: the burn was gone, finally replaced by a pleasure he felt all the way through his body. He felt almost like he was skirting the edge of orgasm, only Roy wasn’t touching his cock at all, didn't have to. Ed was glad that he wasn't, because then this would have been over too soon, and he wasn't ready for that. The sensation continued to build: it felt different, deeper than the other times he had come under Roy’s hand, or his mouth, or his tongue. Roy’s pace quickened, leaving no room for rational thought. It was almost too much – he was drowning in it, couldn’t move, each shallow breath followed by a cry, then faster – 

“That’s it, come for me,” a voice growled, words hot on Ed’s neck, and that was the end of it. He keened senselessly, unable to care how loud he was anymore.

“Oh god,” he said, in a small voice, as he felt the pleasure hit its peak – 

Then, he was coming, coming hard all over Roy and over himself, head pressed back into the bed as his body pressed forward, up and off – 

“ _General,_ ” he sobbed – 

And at that one word, Roy was coming inside him with a long groan of his own, cock throbbing with the force of his release. He thrust again once, twice, and then stilled.

They stayed there for a long moment, bodies sweat-soaked and trembling, clasped together as if holding each other was the only thing they remembered how to do. There was quiet, filled with the sounds of heavy breathing, and then Roy pulled away gently, pressing a kiss to Edward's lips. He laid on his side next to his lover, arm curled up under his head, and Ed turned to face him.

“Hello,” Roy said, corners of his lips curving upward, his eyes warm, fond.

“Hi,” said Edward, in return.

“How are you?”

“Pretty damn good.”

“Is that all? I was aiming for for 'euphoric,' even 'transcendent.'”

Ed snorted.

“You're so damn full of yourself.”

“Am I? I'm pretty sure you were singing a different tune about five minutes ago. You were singing quite loudly, in fact.”

Edward felt himself start to flush, for no reason he could pin down.

“Shut up, Mustang,” he said, not really meaning it.

“Why would I want to be quiet when saying things like that makes you blush so adorably?”

“What, you like it when I blush?”

“Of course. It's impossibly endearing.”

“You're fuckin' weird, is what you are.”

“Maybe a little bit,” Roy said, and pressed his lips to Edward's again, then pulled away and just looked at Ed, expression warm as he watched, examining. He was so close he was making Edward a bit uncomfortable. “But you fascinate me, Edward Elric. Is that so wrong?”

Ed rolled violently onto his back with a huff, but couldn't help smiling at the ceiling.

“Sap,” he accused.

“Maybe.”

A quiet fell between them then. Roy's hand came up to stroke Ed's hair.

“So,” Roy began, petting, soothing, “can you promise me that you're never going to go and do something stupid like leaving me and not telling me why again?”

“Hopefully nothing like that shitstorm will ever come up again. But, yeah. For what it's worth, I promise,” Edward said, eyes roving across the ceiling. It was, unsurprisingly, not particularly remarkable.

“I'm glad to hear it. However, that was only a symptom of a greater ill in our relationship, which we need to deal with, preferably sooner rather than later. Communication is the core of a relationship, and our communication is – well, rocky at best. I know that you're not the type of man to go to others with his problems. Even Alphonse seems to have at best a guess at what's going on in your head, although to be fair it is quite a good guess. But if you and I are going to work out, we're going to need to be able to talk about things before they turn into real problems.”

Edward lay in silence. After a moment, Roy said, wryly:

“...You aren't setting a very good precedent for said communication at the moment.”

“I'm thinking.” 

“About what? Telling me is a start.”

Ed made a thinking noise and shifted his position. If the movement happened to end with his side pressed up against his lover, well: he hadn't done it on purpose, and he didn't notice.

“Um. Well. I was wondering – how many people are gonna know, y'know, about us?”

“As many or as few as we care to tell.” So they were going public. Edward thought he was okay with that, but he still had to consider it.

“That not gonna be an issue for your political ambitions? Nobody's gonna say anything when they find out that you're fucking a guy, and that he's fifteen years younger than you? That you're fucking the former Fullmetal Alchemist?”

Roy frowned, and Edward didn't like it. The difference in their ages had been a non-issue up until this point.

“Does the age difference bother you?”

“What? No! I didn't –” Ed shifted his head on the pillow so that he could look at Roy, apologetic. “I'm sorry. That's not what I meant. I just don't wanna get in the way of what you want to do.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” The older man paused. “And, hopefully you won't be a problem. You have consented to this relationship and are of an age that you can legally do so. I am also not married to someone else, the combination of which puts us leagues above most politicians' trysts, regardless of your age or sex.”

Edward laughed.

“I guess that's true. And we can stay pretty much on the down-low about the... other stuff, can't we?”

“My lips are sealed. It's nobody's business what goes on in our bed but ours.”

Ed nodded. He had one last question.

“Uh, 'm I gonna stay the night here?”

Roy's chuckle was warm and comforting.

“I don't know. Are you?”

Ed turned his face to the pillow and thought about it.

“Um, yes,” Edward said, after a moment. Roy wrapped an arm around him, pulled him closer.

“Oh, good,” said Roy, lips tracing warmth across Ed's forehead. “I had been hoping you'd say that.”

*

Roy was sitting on the couch with a mug of tea when Edward burst into his house behind the crackle of a transmutation circle, letting the warm air of a summer night inside before slamming the door behind him.

“Keys, Edward,” Roy said, with some amusement and only mild resignation. “You use them to unlock things. We've been over this: you'd think that a genius would be quicker on the uptake. You must not be as smart as everyone says. How did it go?” he asked, without segue. 

“Lost my keys, if you were meant to keep track of those things they wouldn't make 'em so small, you have no right to insult my intelligence you shrimp-brained son of a bitch, and it went fantastic,” Edward said, flashing a grin and flopping down onto the couch beside his lover. “We've got the grant.”

Roy smiled in sympathy with Ed's delight.

“Congratulations. I'm really proud of you. And I'm so happy that you could take my work where I couldn't.”

“Thanks. I'm pretty fuckin' thrilled myself. They gave Al and me nearly a million cenz, a major lab at Central University starting in July, and as many lackey alchemists and lab techs as I could possibly terrorize.”

“Dear god, I would hate to have you as a boss,” Roy said, smiling, and set down the book he had been reading. He examined the array on the back of his glove, carefully.

“Hey, if I'm a terrible boss it's only because you set a shitty example.”

“I don't know about that. I managed to keep you in line, didn't I?” the general purred. Edward stiffened at the tone of voice; his eyes flicked down to Roy's gloved hands, then back up again. The older man was mildly surprised that it had taken Edward so long to notice that Roy had his flame gloves on. Usually it did not, although to be fair Ed had been quite distracted when he had come in that evening.

“Did you?” said Edward, cocking his head to the side, a long smirk growing on his lips. “Funny, I don't remember it that way.”

“That's interesting. Perhaps you need to be reminded.” Roy stood up, motion slow and purposeful.

“And how're you planning on doing that?”

“Get on your knees,” he growled, and Edward did.

*

Edward was sore and tired and significantly worse for wear – physically, anyway – when he came back to his house the next morning to find Al at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and nursing a cup of coffee, although the residual pain wasn't nearly enough to bring him down from the mild euphoria that followed him for days after play.

“Hey,” he said, not bothering to kick off his boots before beelining towards their brand-new Rockbell Instant Coffee Machine and pulling a mug from the cabinet. He filled it with the delightful black liquid without further ado.

“Hey,” Al replied, turning to his brother. “How are you?”

“Sore,” Ed groaned, rubbing a shoulder with his hand, as if that actually helped. “Goddammit, Mustang does the weirdest –”

“And that's quite enough of that story,” said Alphonse, firmly. “You wouldn't want to hear about _my_ sex life, would you?”

“You don't have a sex life.”

Al blushed furiously.

“Well if I did, I'm sure you'd appreciate me keeping it to myself.”

“Eh, probably. How's Winry doing?” Ed asked, saturating his coffee with sugar. 

Al blushed harder.

“I don't see what she has to do with this conversation.”

Ed raised an eyebrow and smirked, then sat down at the table across from his brother, his mug clanking on the wood.

“I never said she did. You were the one who assumed I meant something by it. You're acting suspicious. Should I be prying more?” 

“No! There's nothing to pry into.” 

“What, so you're not interested? Coulda fooled me.” The coffee, once cooled, was perfect.

“Of course not! Winry and I are just friends.”

“You're not a very good liar.”

Al had entirely forgotten about his newspaper, and was looking quite harried in addition to embarrassed. He was so cute when he was trying to hide something.

Honestly, Ed thought it couldn't be more obvious that his little brother was head over heels in love with their oldest friend. And why not? She was a lot of fun, a very sweet girl when she wasn't being a psychopath, smart, and very pretty besides. It hadn't escaped even Ed's notice that she had developed ample feminine assets.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“'Course you do, Al. Don't play stupid. Doesn't suit you.” He took a swallow of his coffee. “There's nothing wrong with you liking Winry. I think you two would be good together.”

“I don't know where you're getting these ideas,” Al said, high-pitched.

“Come on, it's obvious. You're all over her. You talk about her all the time, like she's the best fuckin' thing since the transmutation circle. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. Why're you trying to hide it so hard?”

Al watched his brother for a moment, then turned his eyes to the table.

“Well,” he started, going quiet, “she's not in love with me. She's in love with _you._ ”

Ed frowned.

“Yeah, maybe, or she was anyway, but we would be horrible together, and besides I'm unavailable. You'd make her really happy, I know you would. You're way nicer than me.”

“Yeah, but... apparently she doesn't want nice. And I don't think I'm nice enough to not be upset about being second best, the consolation prize for not getting her first choice of the Elric brothers.”

Hearing that made Ed hurt.

“Hey now, do you think so little of Winry that you really believe she would ever do anything for that kind of reason? You know she's a better person than that. I think you just haven't ever made a play for her, and up until pretty recently you were a suit of armor who sounded like a ten year old. It's hard to be physically attracted to a suit of armor, and that's a big part of being interested in somebody, isn't it? All I'm sayin' is, you should give it a try. She'll see what a mistake she made pretty quick if you do, I promise.”

Al turned those big golden eyes on him, and Ed smiled.

“You really think so?”

Ed took another long swallow of his coffee, then set his cup down again and said, seriously:

“Yeah, I really do.”

*

“Hello, Garfiel's Automail Services, this is Winry, how can I help you?” asked Winry, through the receiver of Al's telephone.

“Hey Winry, this is Al. How are you?”

“Al! This is unusual. You don't call too often. What's up?”

“Nothing much, really. I just wanted to ask if it would be okay for me to come visit you in Rush Valley pretty soon?”

“Visit? Wait, you haven't lost a limb that you need me to make automail for, have you?”

Al laughed.

“No, no. Nothing like that. I just wanted to see you.”

“Oh,” Winry said, sounding surprised. “Um, I guess, yeah, okay. I should have this coming Tuesday and Wednesday off, if you want to come then.”

“Tuesday and Wednesday? That sounds perfect.”

*

Edward looked entirely too happy when he met Roy outside of the office as he got off work that day. The evening was warm and sunny, despite the hour: one of the wonderful things about summer. One of its other advantages was that Edward could be persuaded to wear nothing more than his favorite tank top, which displayed his shoulders and collarbones to beautiful effect and bared his muscled stomach when he raised his arms.

“You look disturbingly happy, like you've been getting into trouble,” Roy said, one eyebrow cocked. “What have you been up to all day?”

“Oh, nothing bad,” said Edward, looking disturbingly pleased with himself. “I've been arranging some payback.”

“That sounds ominous,” said Roy, turning to the gate and beginning his walk there, unbuttoning his uniform jacket as he went.

“Ominous? Nah, not particularly. I've just been playing matchmaker.”

“Have you?” Roy's eyebrow went up even higher. 

“Al's on a train to Rush Valley as we speak,” Edward told him, cheerily. “I've convinced him to go visit Winry. So, yeah. Payback.”

Roy's smile matched Ed's own. Roy hadn't known that Al was interested in the Rockbell girl, but it made sense, and he couldn't think of anything he approved of more. Without Al, he and Ed would have crashed and burned early on, if they had even managed to get started. Alphonse deserved to be as happy as he had made them. 

“I'm glad. I'm very glad.”

Edward turned to him, and without warning pulled him down by his collar into a deep kiss. When they pulled apart, Ed growled into his ear.

“I'm horny as all hell. Let's fuck.”

“What, right here?” Roy said, trying to sound like the idea didn't turn him on.

“Not exactly. I've found a great little corner, though. An alcove, almost. Nobody could see you unless they walked right by, and nobody goes there.”

“It sounds like you've been location scouting.”

“All fucking afternoon. Now I'm all hot and bothered.”

“Well then. It would be a shame to let all that work go to waste, wouldn't it?” Roy said, and took the man's lips in his own.

***

***

 

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's a fangirl to do when her fandom is heaving its last dying breaths? 
> 
> Write her own damn fic, that's fucking what.
> 
> I wrote this for eight months of my life. I thought about it all the time. I woke up in the morning, every morning, often as early as five o'clock, specifically for the purpose of having an hour or two to write Roy and Ed being dumbasses at each other before I had to take on the rest of the world. I have struggled with this particular chapter for over two months now. My steam has finally run out, my friends. I'm tired. I worked really hard on this fic.
> 
> So, I cannot even explain to you how much I would love it if you would take thirty seconds to write me something nice in the little box down at the bottom of the page. If you don't have anything to say to me, and you liked it, fuckin... share this fic with a friend, or something. 
> 
> Thanks to the people who have supported me so far. I appreciate it more than you know.
> 
> Love to you all!
> 
> ~Mthaytr
> 
> P.S. If anybody can get me copies of the now-absent Ciceqi's FMA fic I will be forever in your debt.


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